


The More Things Change. . .

by JayceCarter



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bending Canon Until It Breaks, F/M, Married Couple, Mistaken Identity, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Smut, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-02-13 10:06:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Everyone has a past. John Hancock just never expected his to walk through the gates of Goodneighbor after two hundred years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Feral21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feral21/gifts).



Goodneighbor. The scum of the Commonwealth if Danse was to be believed. Not that it mattered because she had to go there. Nothing would stop Nora, least of all a town of junkies and thieves.

 

The bloody chunk of Kellogg’s brain tucked into her pocket reminded her she couldn’t stop, no matter what dark places she had to trudge.

 

Goodneighbor had Dr. Amari, the only woman smart enough to drag secrets out of a dead brain according to Nick, and Nick hadn’t been wrong yet. He’d headed off first, and knowing him, he’d have reached the city already.

 

“Are you all right, Soldier?” Danse stretched his legs out as he sat on the floor of the apartment building they’d cleared. When it had grown dark, they’d holed up for the night. As anxious as Nora was to get another step closer to Shaun, she knew caution would keep her alive long enough to find him. Stupidity out here would only get her killed. 

 

“Yeah. Sorry, am I not holding up my end of the conversation?”

 

“You seem preoccupied.”

 

She toed her shoes off so the fire could dry her socks and warm her feet. “I was thinking about the last time I was in Goodneighbor.”

 

“You said you’d never been there.”

 

“I haven’t. I mean, I went to where it is now before the war. Nate took me on our first date there, if my maps are right and it’s where I think it is. Everything looks different now, but I remember it.”

 

“You don’t talk much about Nate.”

 

“What is there to say? He died along with everything else. It’s just, thinking about that place, it reminds me how much has changed. I wore this pretty red dress because I thought we’d go somewhere nice for our first date. Instead, he took me for coffee and to a little used bookstore. We bought some stupid book of old love poems and acted them out to each other in a back alley. I looked ridiculous, completely overdressed, but I’d wanted to impress him.” It was easy to remember the good times with Nate, and they hurt less than the bad times.

 

“He married you, so you must have managed.”

 

Nora sighed, bumping her arm against Danse’s. He’d become a good friend over the months she’d been awake, always at her side, always at her back. Who knew? Maybe once her life settled down, once she had Shaun back, maybe there could be something more there.

 

She couldn’t think about it right then.

 

It hurt too much to think about, especially so close to Goodneighbor, where the memories could reach out and pull them under. The idea of moving on, they scraped her raw. She wasn't ready, might never be ready. Some scars never did fade.

 

“You should get some sleep, Nora.”

 

She smiled at her name on his lips. He never used it, like the name might be too familiar. “Sure, Danse.”

 

Sleep was good. When she slept, she could see the world the way it used to be.

 

#

 

John groaned as he leaned against the wall, Fahr beside him, trying to hide from the sun. He hated the fucking sun.

 

He’d have hidden out in the Statehouse all day if his bodyguard and babysitter hadn’t dragged his ass out and into the world. He was mayor, he needed to do shit, or so she said.

 

See people, kiss babies all that bullshit.

 

Fuck it. He wasn’t mayor because he’d campaigned. He’d earned his title and kept it through bloodshed like he’d earned everything else.

 

Pills rattled in their tin can when he pushed off the wall. They always did that, signaled his approach like a theme song.

 

It was fine. He liked people to see him coming.

 

Though, the rattle made his mouth water. An alarm. Right, time for a chem break. Always a good time for chem break.

 

He chuckled as he pulled the tin out.

 

The orange tint of the mentats Fred made just for him had him grinning. Just the way he liked ‘em. Curiously strong.

 

Fahr snorted at his baseless laughter, muttering “fucking junkie” loud enough for him to hear. He didn’t care, let her say whatever she wanted. They were the sort of friends who could talk all the shit they wanted about each other.

 

The chalky pill went down easy, dry swallowed since he’d had plenty of practice. Everything sharpened for a moment, and he could almost see how it all had been before, almost see it all before it went to shit. He loved that, the way it made the ugliness drift away until he could almost see the years turn backward, back to before he fucked it all up. 

 

“Why don’t you hand over everything you got on you?” Finn’s voice floated toward him from the front gates.

 

Why did Finn always fuck with his high? He'd told the asshole enough times to knock off his shit, but Finn never did listen.

 

“Unless it’s ‘keep assholes away insurance,’ I’m not interested.” That voice? He knew that voice. He’d never forget that fucking voice.

 

John rushed down the walkway toward the conflict, Fahr on his heels. When he reached the end, she took place against the wall to Kleo’s shop, legs crossed, more than willing to let the two people work out their own shit. He didn’t run the sort of town where people jumped into other people’s problems.

 

The woman who’d spoken wore a brotherhood jumpsuit, orange and ugly. Body like that should be in things a lot more fetching than that travesty. Beside her, a Brotherhood Paladin stood in a suit their trademark ‘I’ll fuck you up’ power armor. Asshole looked like he had a stick up his ass the size of that floating fortress they’d rolled up in.

 

“-before accidents start happening. Big, bloody accidents.”

 

Oh, fuck that. John let Finn get away with a hell of a lot, but he wasn’t about to threaten her. Anyone else and John would let it go, he’d have shuffled Finn off with a stern word or two.

 

Not her.

 

“Hey, now. What did I tell you about that extortion crap?”

 

 “Why do you care? She ain’t one of us.”

 

She was John’s, that’s who the fuck she was. “First time through the gate is free.”

 

“You’re soft, John. Keep letting outsiders walk all over us and there’ll be a new mayor.”

 

John pulled his lips into a tight grin and set a hand on Finn’s shoulder. He leaned in close like they were best fucking friends. “Ah, brother, why’d you have to go and say that?”

 

Fahr sighed loud enough Finn tensed. Yeah, she knew that smile, knew exactly what John would do, and her sigh told Finn that

 

And sure enough, John grasped his blade from the small of his back and drove it into Finn’s stomach. Once, twice, by the third time the handle went slippery but he didn’t want to stop, not until Finn’s legs gave out and he collapsed over. Too fucking heavy for John to keep upright.

 

John twisted to face the girl, her face so damned familiar. Could it be? It had to be, right? Same voice, same body, same everything. No, impossible. Couldn’t be, right?

 

For the first time in a long time, he wished he hadn’t taken any chems. He needed a clear head to figure this out.

 

He plastered a too-friendly smile on his face to hide everything beneath. “Now don’t let this little incident color your view of our lovely town, huh? Goodneighbor is of the people, for the people.” He’d said words so many times they came out on autopilot.

 

“Yeah, well, thanks.” She went to walk away.

 

No, not yet. He didn’t want her to go yet. “You in town for something specific, sister? Because Brotherhood ain’t well liked here.”

 

This time her tin can partner spoke up from his place, about ten feet up, causing John to crane his neck to see the asshole’s face. He fucking hated tall people. “That isn’t any of your business, abomination.”

 

John pulled a cigarette from his pack, lighting it with a quick and practiced motion. “Everything that walks through those gates is my business. I’m Mayor Hancock, and this little piece of Heaven is my town. I suggest you offer up your names, at least. Tit for tat and the like.”

 

“I am Paladin Danse.”

 

John offered a mocking salute with the hand holding his cigarette before turning toward the woman. “And you are?” His breath stuck in his chest while he waited for the answer.

 

She took a step backward from the scrutiny. Right, ease up, don’t scare her off. “Knight Nora Jacobs.”

 

Fuck.

 

He said nothing, or hell, maybe he said something. He didn’t really know. The two turned and walked away, leaving John, cigarette dangling from his fingers, mouth hung open like an idiot.

 

Nora Jacobs, his wife, the mother of his child, the woman he’d thought was dead from an old and forgotten life when he’d gone by a different name.

 

Back when he'd been known as Nate Jacobs.


	2. Chapter 2

John’s hands shook as he rolled the jet between his fingers and over his knuckles.

 

Nora.

 

How the fuck could Nora be here? She’d been dead, like every other fucking thing from back then. It was how he knew karma was shit. If the world had any karma, John would have been the one dead and gone, not Nora. Fuck knew he didn’t deserve to live.

 

Was that what this was? Karma doing a reboot, trying to fix the shit it fucked up? Maybe he’d luck out and Nora would shoot him and set everything right.

 

He lifted the jet to his lips, pressing the top to suck down a lung full of the poison. Good thing about being a ghoul, he guessed. Chems didn’t seem to fuck with him so much, probably because his body was already shit. Maybe the insides of his lungs were all scarred up too.

 

She’d looked the same, too. Damn, that had hit him hard. Even in that fuck-ugly jumpsuit and with more than a day or two of dirt on her face, she’d looked the same.

 

His Nora. His sunshine. He still remembered her the day he’d married her. They’d run off to the courthouse without their parents knowing and tied the knot. She’d worn a white sundress, flowing and immaculate and so much more than he’d ever deserved.

 

And he’d fucked it all up, been a shitty husband. Not that it shocked him, or anyone else, because what had he ever been good at besides his job?

 

When he’d gone into their old house out of some masochistic streak that wanted to see her bones, to see Shaun’s bones, to maybe bury them, the screaming of old fights filled the rusted, broken walls. He'd run and she'd shoved and between the two of them they never got shit right.

 

Fuck.

 

He dropped the jet into his coat pocket and stared at the mirror on the back of his door.

 

He hated mirrors, but he kept this one to remember. Needed to remember what he was, always. On the floor of that fucking house when he couldn’t even find her bones to bury, he’d injected that chem so he’d never forget. Couldn’t spend another day looking at the old face; that face was a lie.

 

His old face said shit that wasn’t true. Made him look handsome, good, wholesome. Fuck those things. He’d let that shit burn through his veins so he’d look like the monster he knew he was, so the whole world would see.

 

A penance for everything he’d done. Not that it made up for shit. It didn’t bring Nora back, didn’t bring Shaun back, didn’t make it so he got to at least die beside ‘em.

 

But, hell, maybe that was why she’d come back. Maybe she was his final punishment.

 

John balled his hand into a fist and slammed it against the mirror, the shards falling to the ground like fucking confetti. Always a party with John around, right?

 

Blood dripped from his hand to the remnants of the mirror, but at least it meant he didn’t have to see himself.

 

#

 

Nora unpacked her things, laying them out on the top of the dresser. The inside had dust that would color her clothing gray, like everything else, so she never put the things totally away.

 

Still, leaving them out would help prevent wrinkling.

 

And why did she still care about that? Most of her clothes had stains, blood and feral guts and things she didn’t want to think about let alone remember. It didn’t matter, though. The part of her that had grown up with an overbearing and perfectionist mother wanted things to look right.

 

It meant she hadn’t cut her long hair despite Danse’s continued complaints about it. He’d remind her a long braid was a perfect weakness for an enemy to make use of.

 

Didn’t matter. She’d never cut it, not if she could avoid it. It was part of her, the part of her that still wanted to be seen a certain way, that wanted her to see herself that way. Never mattered how dirty or greasy her hair got, she never cut it.

 

Nick had met them in the Memory Den, but Dr. Amari would need at least a night to go over everything they’d brought before she could give them any information. It meant they were stuck in town for the night, and Nick had insisted they head to the local bar for a drink.

 

“You clean up nice, doll.”

 

Nora twisted to find Nick standing by her door. “Hey, I’m being taken out on the town by two handsome men. I have to keep up.”

 

Nick laughed before reaching out with his good hand. He twirled Nora once, taking in the outfit. “Don’t let Danse hear you say that or you’ll have to hear a lecture on how I’m not a man.”

 

“After the last talking to he got from me? No, he’ll be on good behavior.”

 

Nick pulled Nora to his side so she could slide her arm into the crook of his. Always the gentleman, Nick was like the father figure she’d missed. He’d been the first person she’d found, the first she’d clung to. He hadn’t liked her throwing her lot in with the Brotherhood, and their easy friendship had turned less easy with that, but she couldn’t help it.

 

The Brotherhood had resources she needed, and he’d understood that finding Shaun was the most important thing to her.

 

They stopped into Danse’s room next, who narrowed his eyes at where their arms linked but said nothing. Smart man.

 

While Danse might be her friend, and perhaps more someday, she hated his stubborn attitude toward non-humans. Time, she’d told herself. Time and he might adjust. He hadn’t lived the life she had, hadn’t grown up as she had. He’d admitted to her the story about Cutler, the story that ended with him having to kill whatever was left of his friend. She understood how the wasteland could twist a person up in their own hatreds, and she didn’t blame him for it.

 

Smoke, laughter, and the sultry voice of a singer beckoned them down the stairs of the Third Rail. Nick remained on her left, Danse on her right, and few people took more than a passing look at them.

 

Goodneighbor seemed a mind your own business sort of place. Nora and Danse took a spot at a table while Nick got drinks. He liked to stay useful.

 

“You look nice,” Nora said.

 

Danse smoothed his hands down his front to straighten his flannel shirt. “You told me not to wear my uniform.”

 

“Because we’re relaxing. You can’t relax in uniform.”

 

“Is that why you’re wearing. . . that?”

 

Nora shrugged as she took the beer Nick handed her. “The correct thing to say is ‘you look nice.’ Try it, Danse.”

 

He pressed his lips together as his gaze drug over her, before shoving the words out. “You look nice.”

 

“You could make it sound less like a tooth extraction.”

 

Before he could answer, Mayor Hancock walked up to the table. “Well, if it ain’t my favorite town newbies. And Nicky, brother, you keep strange company.”

 

“Mayor.” Nick inclined his head as he took a seat. “I take it you’ve already met?”

 

“Sure did. Tin can there called me an abomination.”

 

“He’s an acquired taste. I haven’t acquired it yet, but don’t blame Nora for her poor choice in company. She's soft-hearted.”

 

Nora set her beer down. “Children, let’s not bicker. This is only our first drink, and I like to hold off all fighting until I’m good and drunk. Care to join us, Mayor?”

 

Hancock’s eyebrow lifted as if the offer surprised him, but he took the seat between Danse and Nick anyway, placing him across from her. “Don’t mind if I do.”

 

Nora tapped her thumb against the beer bottle while she studied the ghoul. She’d met enough ghouls, had dealt with them over the time she’d been awake. Hell, she’d set up the Slog to make sure they had a place to go they’d feel comfortable in. She had nothing against them, hell she'd found a few she really liked.

 

This ghoul though? He was trouble. It was in the set of those shoulders, in the charisma he showed, in the way he’d stabbed the man at the gates.

 

This was a man used to be in control and that was a hell of a red flag. Not to mention he seemed the type who would talk someone into something before he realized all the reasons it was a bad idea. She’d dealt with one man like that already.

 

She didn’t need another.

 

Nora lifted her beer to her lips, swallowing down the room-temperature liquid.

 

His gaze zeroed in on her lips before his own quirked up at the side.

 

“How’s the town, Hancock?” Leave it to Nick to keep the conversation going.

 

Hancock tore his gaze from Nora’s lips. “Good. I ever tell you thanks for taking care of Daisy’s caravan trouble? If she can't move her goods Goodneighbor ends up poor for anything but guns and chems.”

 

“You thanked me by sending three hundred caps.”

 

“Right. Gotta stop doing so many chems, huh?”

 

“Like that’ll ever happen.” Nick didn’t drink, so he nursed his cigarette instead, smoke catching on the brim of his fedora before floating up to join the rest in the room. “Ellie’s been asking about you.”

 

Hancock lifted his hands, palms out, one hand wrapped with a blood-stained strip of cotton. “Hey there, brother, I didn’t touch her. I know better than to shit where I eat.”

 

“Unfortunately, I think turning her down made her more interested.”

 

“That why you ain’t brought her back with you? Afraid to add to her infatuation?”

 

“I blame you. She walks in and you kiss her hand then throw your arm around her, walking her around the town like some prince in those old books.”

 

Nora snorted at that.

 

Hancock’s gaze shot back to her like it hadn’t ever left.  “Got something to say, sister?”

 

“You don’t strike me as a prince.”

 

He leaned his elbow on the table and tilted his head. “Yeah? What do I seem like to you?”

 

“A con-man.”

 

The table went silent, spreading out to even the bar around them. Seemed people didn’t insult the great Mayor Hancock very often.

 

After a moment, Hancock laughed, a soft chuckle that signaled everyone else to take a deep breath. “I like your bite.”

 

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Danse snapped.

 

“Like what?”

 

“Brotherhood soldiers don’t lower themselves to abominations like you-“

 

“-Danse!”

 

The sharp rebuke by Nora had Danse falling silent, though his jaw ticked. After a moment, he stood, chair scooting backward. “Very well, soldier. I believe I’ve had enough fun for the evening.” He stormed off.

 

Nora sighed before rubbing her eyes. She should go. She’d caused problems between herself and Danse, and while he didn’t hold grudges, he deserved better. He'd helped hold her together when she had nothing, helped teach her to survive this world. While he went to extremes with his views, he was her friend.

 

“Stay.”

 

Nora lifted her gaze to Hancock. “What?”

 

“Stay. He wants to run off, well, he’s a big boy. You ain’t gotta go chasing after him.”

 

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but Nick interrupted the thought.

 

“You could use a night off, doll. I’ll go check in with him.” Nick didn’t wait for anything else before offering Nora a kiss on the check and leaving Nora and Hancock alone.

 

Hancock flashed her a smile before nodding toward the back. “Ya know, I own this place. Could show you the VIP room.”

 

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

 

He didn’t even blink like the rejection didn’t faze him. “Ain’t asking you to. Just thought a quiet place to talk with comfy couches would be better than out here.”

 

“You strike me as the type of man I shouldn’t follow into a room alone.”

 

“And you strike me as the type of woman to do what she wants rather than what she should. Besides, I’ve got free liquor in there.”

 

Nora studied him for a moment again, the arrogance, the charm, the smile that said he was already sure he’d won.

 

And damn it, he had. She returned his grin before standing. “Show me the way.”

 

#

 

John kept his wits about him somehow. Sitting at that table, talking to Nicky like nothing was up, that had been a hard fucking game to play.

 

All he’d wanted was to pull Nora into his lap, to press his lips to hers, to taste her and ask her what the fuck had happened.

 

He couldn’t though.

 

Just fucking look at her.

 

She lounged on the couch in her fucking dress, looking so damned much like she had on their first date. The stupid fucking poems from that book perched on his tongue, like maybe he could win her over a second time. Her hair was braided out of her face, tied at the nape of her neck, the end loose. Her long legs stretched out on the couch, crossed at the ankle, hem of her dress around her thighs. The years hadn’t touched her.

 

It was like she’d walked right out of their house. Like not a day had passed.

 

His fingers brushed the grooves in his other hand. Wasn’t the same for him, was it? Shit had surely changed for him.

 

“So, what’s up with you and tin can?” What he really wanted to know was if they were fucking yet.

 

Pretty clear Paladin Limpdick wanted to, what with the way he’d been eye fucking John’s wife, but Nora? Well, he couldn’t figure her out just yet, which wasn’t anything new.

 

He’d never been able to figure her out.

 

“He’s not so bad.”

 

“Guess his abomination bullshit confused me.”

 

She twisted her head so she could gaze at him. “I’m sorry about that. He’s lived in the Brotherhood a long time, and it makes him a bit inflexible in certain views.”

 

“Still didn’t answer my question.” He took a drink of his bourbon to hide his nerves at the answer. “You two together?”

 

Nora pulled her gaze from him, staring at the ceiling instead, beer bottle in her hand resting on her stomach. “No. I’m not really looking for romantic entanglements.”

 

“No?”

 

“Nope, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m not a man-whore like you. Don’t think I missed all the looks you got around that bar.”

 

Fuck. He’d love to argue against it, but it was true. Chems and women, he took whatever distraction he could find. Anything to keep from thinking.

 

“You got any kids?”

 

Her smile slid off her lips and didn’t that answer it?

 

His chest ached at the truth. Shaun was gone. Had to be. He’d suspected it the moment he’d realized she was there, since his Nora would never have left her child behind. If she came alone, it meant Shaun hadn’t made it.

 

Instead of letting himself hurt, because he didn’t deserve to wallow in that pain, to claim it for his own, he reached out and set a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, sister. Didn’t mean to bring up something painful.”

 

She leaned into the touch for a moment before lifting the beer to gulp down the rest of it. What was she on? Her fourth? Fifth? Hell if he knew.

 

“So, you clearly ain’t from around here. Where’d you come from?”

 

She sat up, flashing him more thigh as the dress slid up.

 

Damn, he’d always loved those legs. She wasn’t skinny, hadn’t ever been, but damn if he didn’t want those legs wrapped around his waist.

 

“Vault.”

 

What? Oh, right, where she came from. He tried to think back. There’d been a vault just behind their settlement. He’d been turning the rep away for weeks before he’d left. Had they signed her up for it when he was gone? What sort of shit were they cooking up in that vault that could cause this?

 

“Ain’t a surprise. You got that fish outta water vault dweller thing written all over you.”

 

She stood and tossed her empty bottle into the wastebasket in the corner, missing the bastard by a good mile. “Well, we all come from somewhere. What about you, Good Mayor, where are you from?”

 

He jumped up when she stumbled, catching her. Fuck, he’d missed the way she smelled, the warmth of her skin. “A little bit of everywhere, vaultie.” He slid his hands behind her and swayed to the sound of Magnolia’s voice.

 

“Yeah, I can see that. You don’t seem like a man who puts down roots.” Nora leaned into him, arms going over his shoulders. She’d danced like this with him before, and the woman hadn’t lost it. Not after two hundred years and not after all those beers.

 

He pulled her flush against him out of instinct, fingers digging into her lower back as he led. He let himself pretend it was the old world. He wasn’t a junkie ghoul and she was in love with him. "You got experience with men who don't put down roots?"

 

Her breath spilled over his cheek. “More than I'd like. Do you do this all the time? Bring women back here to seduce them with a dance?”

 

“Nah, I never dance anymore, sister.”

 

She pulled back, looking the few inches he stood above her, her bottom lip between her teeth. She used to look at him like that, back before it all went to shit. She wasn’t forward, a girl to make the first move, but those eyes would light up and she’d bite that bottom lip, and that would tell him all he needed to know about what she wanted.

 

So John fell. No, he didn’t fall, he fucking leaped off that cliff and went two hundred years before, his lips crashing against hers, one hand grasping the back of her neck to keep her to him, to keep her from slipping away again.

 

Nora tightened her arms around him, her nails biting in him like the sweetest deja vu. Her lips returned the kiss, moving against what was left of his.

 

Fuck this world. They weren’t there, anymore, among the dirt and radiation and shit. He was at the park the night they’d conceived Shaun, when he’d pulled her into the empty playhouse and spent an hour just worshipping her. He’d sworn he’d stay that time, that he’d quit the military, that he’d find a job closer to home. Not that any of those things had been true, but she’d soaked up the lies and him and everything else.

 

She kissed him like she had that night, like she didn’t hate him, like she couldn’t breathe except from his lips.

 

“Hey, Doll.”

 

At Nick’s voice, John and Nora broke apart, putting a good few feet between them like kids caught making out at the library.

 

Her cheeks flushed, hands straightening her dress. “Everything okay, Nick?”

 

Nick chuckled, the look of a man who knew exactly what had been going on. “Yeah, doll. Just thought I’d check in on you. Seems you’re in good hands.”

 

She wouldn’t meet John’s gaze, pushed past him. “Shut up, Nick,” she hissed before fleeing from the VIP room.

 

That fucking chuckle came again. “Haven’t seen her flushed like that before.”

 

“Stay outta it, Nicky. It ain’t your business.”

 

“Isn’t it?” Nick pulled a cigarette from the pack in his coat and offered one to John. He lit them both and took one drag before he continued. “You know, for the years we’ve known each other, you never really said where you were from.”

 

“We’ve all got a past. Figured someone as old as you would know better than to go digging it up.”

 

“Sure, except when your past comes walking into your town, huh?”

 

John held his cigarette between his lips. “No idea what you’re talking about, bolts.”

 

“So we’re going to play that game? When she figures this out, I suggest you run. Girl has a temper. Have yourself a nice evening, _Hancock_.” Nick tipped his hat forward before walking out, leaving John alone.

 

It was good thing Nora was never going to find out.

 

She couldn’t. He’d ruined her life once, already, and he wasn't planning on ruining it again. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

  _Nora slammed her fists on the table, causing the dishes to rattle. “You can’t leave us!”_

 

_Nate zipped his jacket, his pack on the floor, face the same empty mask he wore every time he did this. “I’m not leaving you, sunshine. This is work; I don’t have a choice.”_

 

_What a lie. He had a choice, but instead of asking for paternity leave to stay home with her and Shaun, he’d taken another assignment, jumped on it the moment it had been available. Why did that shock her? Why could he still surprise her when he was doing the same thing he’d done the whole time they’d been married. Ten years and she still managed shock when he didn’t keep his promises._

 

_“You’re leaving me here with your two-week-old baby, alone.”_

 

_He combed his fingers through his hair before grabbing his pack from the ground. “You’re not alone. The nanny will be here in a few days, and your mom is only ten minutes away, not to mention you have Codsworth. It’ll be a month, maybe two. That’s it, sunshine, then I’ll be back.”_

 

_She hated his pet name for her. She’d loved it at first, when he’d whisper it into her ear and hold her close, but then it had rusted. After so many broken promises and nights away, it had crumbled to dust. Now it choked her._

 

_Nora walked to him and shoved his chest. She wanted to hurt him, to force him to feel a tiny bit of the pain he inflicted on her each time he walked away. “You’ve wanted to leave since you got back. You’re always running, Nate. You ran away from your family to marry me, and you ran away from me when you joined the military, and you run away on every assignment you can get your name on. I just never thought you’d run away from your son, as well.”_

 

_Shaun cried from the other room, having woken from Nora’s yelling._

 

_Nate turned his face toward the sound before rubbing his eyes with his fingers, digging in enough it had to hurt. “Fine. I don’t have to go, but I want to. Is that what you want to hear? Is that going to make you feel better to know I want to go? Maybe I’m not cut out for this fatherhood thing. Did you ever think maybe you and Shaun would be better off with me gone more?”_

 

_Nora pulled her shoulders straight, swallowing down the tears and the screaming. She’d cried and she’d screamed and it never made a difference. “You’re a coward.”_

 

_“Maybe. Look, I’m going to go and do this, and when I come home? We’ll go see someone. We’ll figure this out, okay?” He reached out to touch her._

 

_She knocked his hand away before it made contact. She didn’t want to feel his skin, to have that moment when time stood still just before he pulled away like he always did. “Fuck you, Nate. Leave and don’t bother coming back. I’m tired of watching you run away, and Shaun doesn’t need it either.”_

 

_He reached out and grabbed her, pulling her against his chest. He kissed her head even as she shoved him, as she beat against his chest. “I am coming back. We’ll fix this, sunshine, I promise. Nothing is going to happen in the next month.”_

 

Nora came to with someone shaking her arm.

 

Danse stood above her, hand wrapped around her arm. “Nora!”

 

“I’m awake.” She sat up, breathing hard. The alcohol last night must have had her sleeping harder than usual. Her arm swiped across her eyes, collecting tears she’d shed in her sleep. “I’m up.”

 

Danse sat on the bed beside her and pulled her into a stiff hug, so much like the one Nate had given her before he’d left.

 

Fuck. She’d been so angry with him, and she never got to see him again. She never was able to scream at him for leaving her or say she was sorry for not getting one last kiss. Guess it took the world ending to realize how stupid everything was.

 

If only Nate had stayed. Well, if he’d stayed, he’d have been in the cryotube across from her, holding Shaun, and it would have been him who had been shot instead of the nanny they’d hired to help her with Shaun.

 

No. Every damned time she’d gone over the events, there was no way this ended up in any way but her alone. Nate either died when the bombs fell or in the other cryotube. She’d end up alone no matter what.

 

And last night? With Hancock?

 

What the hell had that been? She’d been awake for months and she’d never fallen like that. Even the few times men had seemed interested, she’d never returned a speck of it. The time Arthur had brushed his lips against hers, she’d returned the hesitant kiss. She’d thought, maybe? Maybe she could lose herself in someone else and pretend she could move on.

 

It hadn’t taken long before Arthur had pulled back, too observant to miss that she wasn’t into the kiss at all. He hadn’t been mad, only kissing her forehead and sending her on her way.

 

What would she have done if Nick hadn’t shown up last night? She’d been ready to strip down with Hancock, to devour him, to push him back onto that couch and climb into his lap. A few subtle clothing shifts and she would have been riding him there on the couch, their liquor mixing together on their breaths.

 

Nora pushed away from Danse. She didn’t want to feel him against her. He felt. . . wrong. It wasn’t Nate’s body and right then? Right than anything short of Nate made her want to cry again. How could she still feel guilty after two hundred years? After Nate had walked out on her? And that wasn't even fair, because he was dead. She couldn't be pissed at him since he'd gone and died with everyone else. It was probably petty to be angry that he hadn't returned when he'd died.

 

Danse pulled back, face unsure. “Sorry to wake you, but it’s time to see Amari. Nick just stopped by to say she was ready.”

 

Nora nodded, ignoring the hangover and the guilt and the questions.

 

Nothing mattered more than Shaun, and certainly not a man who was dead and gone.

 

#

 

John waited inside the Memory Den, back against the wall, feet crossed at the ankle, waiting for Nora.

 

Amari kept him up to date with most of the bullshit she dealt with, so he'd known exactly where Nora would be. He knew Amari worked with the Railroad, knew damned well he had synths crossing on through his city like a subway station, and that was fine. Fuck, synths deserved freedom, too.

 

And the whole synth bullshit was exactly why he’d hired MacCready to head to that vault the night before. Check it out, find what he could, try to make sure the story checked out. After Nicky, after seeing what the Institute could do, John couldn’t put it past ‘em to somehow copy her.

 

The door opened down the hallway, and it was the Paladin’s voice that caught his attention first.

 

“You shouldn’t drink so much, Nora.”

 

“I’m not a child; I can take care of myself.”

 

“I know you can. I just-“ The footsteps paused like he’d pulled her to a stop. “I worry about you. In a town like this, if you’re intoxicated, a lot of people could take advantage of that. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

 

Fuck. They spoke like they were close. Not just fellow soldiers, he’d had his share of those. They might not be fucking yet, but they sure as hell were more than people who shot other people together.

 

A soft sigh, then Nora answered. “I know, Danse. I’m sorry, okay?”

 

Another heartbeat of silence. Had he kissed her? Were they about to fuck in the hallway?

 

Only John was allowed to fuck in the hallways.

 

Wait, no, that wasn’t the point.

 

Point was that Nora was his wife and some fucker might be kissing her around that corner.

 

John pulled his jet and took a hit to keep from going around the corner. Don't skin the paladin in the Memory Den. Irma would be pissed.

 

Another moment and they walked into sight, both dressed down.

 

“Hey, sister. You think I could have a word?”

 

Nora jerked her gaze around to John’s, and fuck she had a spine on her. She didn’t react at all, didn’t jump, didn’t pull her gaze away from his. “Sure. Danse, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

 

The paladin hesitated but nodded. “Of course, knight. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

 

“About last night-“

 

“Forget about last night.” Her words came out clipped and distant.

 

They threw his mind off track and his whole ‘we can’t do it again’ plan went out the window. “What?”

 

“You were starting your whole ‘don’t think it meant anything more than it did’ speech, right? Bet you have that thing memorized, probably spout it a couple times a week. Well, don’t bother. I’m not looking for a repeat. As far as I’m concerned, last night was a bad dream. Nothing more.”

 

Rude.

 

“You think I couldn’t feel your nails in my skin? Didn’t feel much like a bad dream.”

 

Nora came closer, leaning into his space, her hand on the wall beside his arm. Was she going to kiss him? He’d been all ready to tell her to forget about that because it was too fucking dangerous, but like he’d turn her down. John had never had any defenses against her.

 

“You looking for round two, sister?” Because fucking in hallways was just fine for John.

 

“Stay away from me, Hancock.” Her lip curled up, nose scrunching. “Fuck, you reek of jet.”

 

And just like that she pulled away, heading down the stairs.

 

It took him another minute to get his brain moving again. Fuck, how did she do that to him?

 

He followed her down, rewarded with matching glares from her and the paladin. “Don’t say it. Case I didn’t make it clear to start with, this is my town, and that there? My doctor. You want to play whatever bullshit you’re playing here? Well, I’m gonna know what it is so you don’t bring trouble down on my town.”

 

“Fine. Enjoy the show.” She gave him her back like he meant nothing.

 

Girl was the only person to dismiss him, and fuck Nick for the way he smiled.

 

Amari spoke, explaining the procedure. Something about hooking Nick and Nora up together through some tiny, bloody piece of tech.

 

The fuck was that thing?

 

Better question, the fuck was Nora into here?

 

When she’d come walking into town, once he’d gotten over his shock, he’d wondered what was pushing her. What was keeping her going? Couldn’t be the Brotherhood, because his Nora wasn’t a military type.

 

For John, it had been grief and cowardice and chems. What kept Nora moving? Clearly it wasn’t anything simple, not if she’d gathered friends like the fucker with the power armor -because he wasn’t fucking using his name, ever- and Nick and now they needed Amari?

 

He wanted to step in and forbid whatever they were doing, but the tight line of Nora’s lips said this wasn’t shit she was letting go. He walked over to the screen after Nora went into the memory lounger.

 

Amari fumbled with the keys on the console, speaking into the mic there.

 

Kellogg? The name kept coming through, and John knew the fuck who that was.

 

He stayed silent, soaking in the details, the pieces.

 

She’d fucking killed Kellogg? Well, that wasn’t the girl he’d known. Guess she had changed some.

 

The screen lit up, voice drifting through the speakers as memory after memory played. He’d been inside those things enough times, meaning Amari’s side-glance said she’d figured it out, too.

 

Yeah, Nora looked exactly like she had in the memories he’d replayed countless times there. No way the attention oriented doctor would miss that.

 

He only nodded to tell her yeah, it was fucking her, and she didn’t know.

 

They followed the trail through Kellogg’s memories, and a part of John felt bad about it. Kellogg was an asshole, sure, but memories were private.

 

No one needed to see his, to dig through the bullshit of his past.

 

Made him wonder what exactly Kellogg had done to turn Nora so vicious that she’d carve this little chip from his head after killing him. Must have fucked up hard.

 

Nick did say she had a temper, and while John knew it, he hadn’t expected it to be like that. Her temper used to be throwing shit and screaming, not tracking down and killing mercenaries.

 

The memory shifted again to. . . a vault?

 

Kellogg and some scientists walked down a dark, metal walkway, surrounded with tubes that looked a bit like upright memory loungers.

 

They stopped at one, and John’s chest froze.

 

The nanny they’d hired just before he’d left on his last job stood, unmoving, with Shaun in her arms. John leaned in closer just to see Shaun’s face.

 

He was bigger already. Had been bigger. Fuck, whatever. He’d only been two weeks old when John had left, but the bombs had fallen about a month later. That’d make him six-weeks-old?

 

John’s fingers stroked over the screen, the closest he could get to his son.

 

Amari said nothing about it; smart doctor.

 

Kellogg opened the tube, one of the scientists trying to take Shaun. The nanny fought it. Fuck, he wished he could thank that woman. Even groggy, confused, she’d struggled to keep hold of his child.

 

Then the fucker lifted his gun and fired a shot into her chest, sending her backward and leaving Shaun in the scientist’s arms.

 

Someone had stolen Shaun. He wasn’t dead, he was somewhere out there. 

 

Kellogg turned to stare into another tube, and on the other side of the foggy window?

 

Nora slammed her fist against the glass, screaming, face red even as ice crystals stuck to her lashes. That woman was all fury right then, blood coating the glass in a thin film as she clawed at everything she could reach to get out.

 

“Well, at least we’ve still got the back-up. Let’s go.” Kellogg’s voice had John’s lip curling up.

 

They reset the controls and ice once again obscured Nora’s face as she went still.

 

So that explained Kellogg, didn’t it? He’d stolen Shaun, and Nora wasn’t the sort of let that go. She’d never have walked away from her child, and would tear anything apart for that kid.

 

For his kid.

 

The memory shifted again to Kellogg in a small house, a kid sitting on the floor.

 

Shaun? God, he looked just like John. Those eyes, and that hair? He was the spitting image of John when he’d still been human. Not a baby anymore, though. No, that kid was ten or so.

 

He didn’t hear what was being said, gaze locked on his kid, the one he hadn’t known was alive. Ten years old? He’d been out and about for at least ten years and John hadn’t fucking known? He’d been so far into a tin of mentats he hadn’t even fucking known his kid was alive and out there alone.

 

No, not alone, with the fucking Institute and with Kellogg.

 

The creaking of metal filled the room, and John released the terminal before he broke the fucking thing. Amari would be pissed if he damaged her precious shit.

 

Amari set a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once before she unhooked Nick. Nick gave John a half smile before heading up the stairs, when Amari went to work on waking Nora up.

 

Nora stumbled out of the memory lounger when it opened, but before John could do a damned thing, crew cut had caught her arm.

 

She didn’t pull away from him, didn’t tense. Nope. Nora threw her damned arms around him like she’d break apart if he didn’t hold her together.

 

And the fucking paladin returned the embrace, whispering something in her ear while she hid her face against his chest.

 

Well fuck.

 

John shook his head and headed out of the Memory Den.

 

There wasn't any room in her life now. That's what he kept saying, right? Wasn't his place to hold her, to whisper into her ear.

 

He'd fucking find his son because it was his son. Whether Nora wanted the help or not, he'd be right there until they had Shaun back, until two only two people who really mattered to him were safe.

 

And once he'd found Shaun, he'd let them both go. Best fucking present he could give either of them was to hand them over to crew cut, to someone who could actually take care of them. 

 

In the end, Nora was right. Running was what he was best at. 


	4. Chapter 4

  _It wouldn't matter how many military bases Nate spent time at, he’d never get used to it. Something about being trapped, about lacking that open air, and the means of escape always got to him._

 

_Two weeks so far. Two weeks of having no idea why his old commander had asked for him, no idea why he’d been brought to the Mariposa Base in the middle of fucking California._

 

_Instead of worrying, because Nate wasn’t one to worry, he took another drink of his beer, having already drank too much. Yet another common thread to his life. Military bases, Nora pissed, and him fucked up on chem or alcohol. Things that never changed._

 

_A knock on his door had him calling for whoever it was to enter._

 

_And in walked the man himself, Roger Maxson._

 

_How many assignments had Maxson and he been on before? Countless. Each time he saw that Maxson name, he signed up. How many times had he drug Maxson’s ass out of a firefight? The scar covering his left shoulder was from when they were pinned down in South America and Nate had knocked Maxson out of the way of a flamethrower._

 

_“Sir,” Nate offered but didn’t stand._

 

_“Nate.” Maxson walked in and sat in a chair at the table._

 

_“Was wondering when you’d show up to tell me what was going on.” Nate leaned back to pull another beer from the minifridge and push it across the table._

 

_“What makes you think anything is going on?”_

 

_“You don’t call for me unless it’s big.”_

 

_Maxson nodded before he popped open the beer on the edge of the table. “How’s Nora and your child? I understand you had a boy.”_

 

_“She’s good. Pissed I’m not there, but you know how women are. She’ll be glad to get me home, I’m sure.”_

 

_“Do you remember how she yelled at me after South America? I think my dick lost two inches that day when she tore me down in front of everyone.”_

 

_Nate laughed as he thought back. Yeah, his Nora had herself a temper, and seeing Nate in a hospital bed, seeing the burned skin on his shoulder, it had sent her over the edge. Poor Maxson had been the focus of all that anger, and he’d stood there, shoulders slumped, and took ever verbal barb. Nate wasn’t sure he’d ever loved her more than in that moment. “Well, if you want to keep the inch you have left, I’d suggest you avoid her for a year or two after this.”_

 

_“Trouble in paradise?”_

 

_“She said I’m always running off.”_

 

_“Well, she isn’t wrong.” Leave it to Maxson to manage to call Nate on his shit without saying it._

 

_Nate rotated the bottle, the beer sloshing up. “You ever get the feeling you just don’t measure up? Like, no matter what you do, it’s never enough? I took one look at Shaun and it hit me. I don’t have a thing to offer that kid. He’s better off without me, better off with just Nora.”_

 

_“I doubt she agrees, and if there is a woman who is willing to speak her mind, it’s Nora.”_

 

_Nate gulped down the rest of his beer before slamming the bottle down. “Tell me what you want, Roger. You didn’t call me out here for a heart to heart.”_

 

_“You always have been smart, Nate. What I need are men I can trust, men who will trust me. Is that you?” His gaze was hard, serious._

 

_“Yeah. You’ve always been able to trust me.”_

 

_“I know. I wouldn’t have sent for you if I couldn’t. This is your last chance, though. You can leave tonight if you want, go home. What happens here, I don’t know how it will end, I don’t know how far this will go. You have a wife and a child to think about. Stay here, do this with me, and you may never be able to go back home to them.”_

 

_Nate took a deep breath and made the choice he knew he’d make, the one he’d always make, the one Nora had screamed at him for. “I’m with you, Roger.”_

 

John set his arm behind his head as he stared up at the stars. Fuck, he loved the stars. They looked the same to him. Maybe it was his shitty eyesight, but when he looked up at the sky, it looked like it had before.

 

Two hundred years and it was still the same. Everything else fell down around him, turned to dust and rubble and ferals, but not the sky.

 

Nope, that shit was untouchable.

 

The door to the roof of the Statehouse opened, and he craned his head enough to look.

 

Nora stepped out, her arms wrapped around herself, gaze up. She moved halfway across the roof before she caught sight of him. “Mayor. Sorry to bother you, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

 

“You doing a little star-gazing, sister? Don’t have to leave, you know.” He patted the ground beside him. “Roof is big enough for two.”

 

Her gaze shifted back to the door, but after a soft sight, she went toward him. She took a spot beside him, mirroring his stance. “You’re pre-war, aren’t you?”

 

“Why would you think that?”

 

“No one looks at the stars anymore. It’s like after everything ended, it stopped mattering. Or, I don’t know, something. I just know that no one looks at them unless they’re pre-war.”

 

John drew his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out, from taking her hand in his. Instead, he spoke. “They don’t change. I mean, I know they do, but not to the naked, untrained eye. Those stars are the same ones I saw as a kid, the only thing that hasn’t change.”

 

Except for Nora. She hadn’t changed, but he couldn’t exactly say that.

 

“I get that. Everything feels like it moves so fast, like it all drifts away.”

 

“I’m sorry about your kid.”

 

She said nothing for a moment, the silence dragging across his nerves. Finally, she spoke. “You got a front row seat for that, huh? He might be older, but I’m still going to find him. I have to, it’s all up to me.”

 

“You got friends, like Nicky and fucking crew cut.”

 

She laughed. “You ever going to use his name?”

 

“Got no plans on it, no.”

 

Nora scooted closer, her jacket scraping against the roof until her arm pressed against his. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Shaun’s father? Seems everyone asks about him.”

 

“Figured if you wanted me to know, you’d share.” That and he really didn’t need to hear how much Nora hated him. He didn’t want to hear about how angry she was, still.

 

“His name was Nate. He was military. I don’t know, I think maybe that’s why I hooked up with Danse to start with, because while they couldn’t be more different, that military brotherhood, it was something familiar. Nate died when the bombs fell, off on a mission. I don’t even know where he was, have no idea where he died.” Her breath caught, like she forced tears away. “I couldn’t even bury him if I wanted to.”

 

Fuck. He reached out slowly in case she wanted to tell him to fuck off, and took her hand. “Sorry, sister. Too common a story out here.”

 

She pulled her hand away. “I don’t need you to feel bad for me. Nate wasn’t a perfect man, and I was angry with him for a long time, but it’s over. It’s all over.”

 

“If you don’t need me to feel bad for you, what is it you’re wanting? Because you kissed me back last night, and you keep staring at me like you want something, so come on. Tell me what you want.”

 

Nora rolled over, slinging her leg across his lap to straddle him, and leaned down so her face was just above his. “You’re a man used to distraction, right? The chems, the women, and this stupid outfit. You use the game, you play the part, and you don’t have to think about whatever it is you’re running from, right?”

 

He set his hands on her thighs, squeezing, the give of them, the warmth of them burned into his mind. “Yeah, something like that.”

 

She slid her fingers behind his head, her lips so close to his, they brushed against him when she spoke. “Help me forget, John. For tonight, help me forget it all.”

 

And that was something he could do for her.


	5. Chapter 5

 

John was just so damned warm. Something about the wasteland was cold, like even when the sun beat down on Nora, when sweat dripped from her brow, it was cold. The hot winds didn’t change that she still felt frozen. Hell, a few times she’d wondered if maybe parts of her hadn’t thawed when she’d woken.

 

But John wasn’t cold. His ruined skin burned against her fingers as she gripped the back of his bald head.

 

Was he going to turn her down? Didn’t seem the type to mind a casual fling, but who knew? Maybe he had some standards she didn’t know. Maybe his hatred of the Brotherhood ran deep enough to include her.

 

And it was crazy to fall into this. She’d turned down every other offer, but somehow John’s warmth drew her in. She just wanted to forget.

 

Forget the years she lost with Shaun, forget the entire world that went away, forget Nate.

 

Forgetting Nate was the hardest. Letting go of someone you were still so angry with didn’t happen fast. She still dreamed of him, and not just the fights. She dreamed of the good times, too, and there were a lot of those. The way he’d sneak up behind her and cover her eyes and tell her to guess who. It usually was followed up with his other hand drifting down her front and into her slacks while she made absurd guesses to keep the game going.

 

Nate had always loved his games.

 

The world shifted around Nora when John flipped them, her back now against the roof while John’s face blocked out the stars. “You ain’t paying attention to me, sister.”

 

“I thought that was your job, to make it so I can’t think about anything else. Unless you aren’t up to the task.”

 

His hips shifted forward, and there was no mistaking the hardness that pressed against her cunt. “I think I’m up to the task. Just figured this was the sort of thing you’d go to your little buzzcut bigot for.”

 

She gasped at the way he pressed against her before responding. “You’re going to run out of nicknames for him eventually.”

 

“Doubt it. I’m pretty fucking quick with the banter. You sure like to avoid questions about him though, don’t you?”

 

“And you’re awfully interested. Why?”

 

John leaned down and scraped his lips along her neck. “I don’t fuck attached women.”

 

“Never figured you for a man with morals.”

 

“I ain’t. Just a man who hates to get shot at because some man wants to defend his woman’s honor. So come on, sister, out with it already.”

 

She tilted her head back to give him access to her throat as he peppered kisses over the exposed skin. “We’re not like that.”

 

“But you both want to be. There are a few things I read really well. I can spot a lie from a mile, an addict from a state away, and I can see lust from space. So, why hasn’t it happened?” His hand slid beneath her shirt, rough skin scratching her as he stroked up to her rib cage.

 

“I’m not ready.”

 

“But here you are, beneath me, so that ain’t totally true, is it?”

 

She swallowed hard when his teeth closed down on her shoulder like a mock-punishment for her half-truth. So she gave him the whole truth because between his touch and the stars and how damned drunk she was on his warmth, she didn’t care to play shit close to the chest. “I’m not ready for a relationship, for love and bullshit like that. To me, it wasn’t that long ago my husband walked out on me and left me behind. Danse is complicated, and I could fall in love with him. I’m not ready for that.”

 

“So, why are you here? In need of a quick lay?” His hand moved up high enough to pull the cup of her bra out of the way, fingers finding her nipple, toying with the point until it hardened beneath his touch.

 

“Pretty much. Besides, you’re safe. I could never love you.”

 

John’s hand froze, body tensing. Guess he didn’t like that answer. He recovered, hand shifting to move down fabric that covered her other breast, to attend to that nipple as well. “You sure have a lot of opinions about me for someone who doesn’t know shit about me.”

 

Tired of being passive, Nora pulled at his shirt, fingers pushing the buttons through the holes until it opened for her. “I know enough. You don’t care about anything except your good time and your freedom. It means this is safe because we won’t ever be anything more than a quick fuck.”

 

He pulled his hand away from her breast so he could pull the shirt up, not high enough to come off but to sit above her bared skin. Seemed all he cared about was access. “Quick? Not sure what you’ve heard, sister, but trust me, I ain’t quick.”

 

Nora shoved his shoulder, rolling him over this time. His lips slid into a grin as he watched the sway of her breasts like lures. She slid down and leaned in, her lips exploring the expanse of his chest where the fabric of his shirt had bagged away. He was thin, his stomach sunken in below his ribcage. If he were human, she’d say he was malnourished. Hell, maybe he was? She wasn’t sure how it worked with ghouls.

 

She’d seen ghouls with more muscle. Edward Deegan came to mind, and that ghoul was neither small nor skinny. Maybe John just hadn’t realized he couldn’t live off chems and jet.

 

And he did reek of jet. Jet, and mentats, and buffout. She could pick out each chem like he’d done them enough they’d soaked into his skin, like they seeped from his pores.

 

She scratched her nails down his chest, thumbs circling his flat nipples once before tracing over the ridges of his ribs.

 

He shuddered at the touch, his hands coming up to cup her breasts. He touched her with a confidence that almost unnerved her. Usually, first times were at least a little awkward. There was that game of getting to know each other. What was too rough? What was too soft? What did they like? What did they hate?

 

John didn’t show a speck of that. Was it the chems? Did they take away the nerves?

 

The worst part was that the asshole didn’t need the nerves. Each brush of his fingers, each touch was exactly what she needed.

 

She yanked at his pants, undoing the small button that kept them fastened, moving down his body as she worked them over his hips. “Nothing beneath. Why does that not surprise me?”

 

“Well-“

 

She shut him up by dragging her tongue up the length of his cock, tongue dipping into the grooves. His cock had the same ravaged skin that covered the rest of him, and she couldn’t help but imagine how they’d feel inside her.

 

“I ain’t anyone’s charity case,” he said, voice low and just this side of frightening. He rolled them once more, pinning her beneath him as he worked her pants off, taking the underwear with her. “You got the prettiest legs, sister. You gonna wrap ‘em around my ears?”

 

“Would you stop manhandling me?”

 

He laughed, his breath spilling over her lower stomach, at least until his gaze stopped on the still red stretchmarks on her skin.

 

They’d turn white with time, she knew it from ones she’d gotten during puberty on her hips, but there hadn’t been enough time. They’d lost the angry purple hue, now inching toward pink, but hell if they didn’t bother her.

 

Nora lifted her hands, setting them over the marks, over the skin that still hadn’t gone back to the firmness it had had before her pregnancy.

 

This was a fuck to scratch the itch, to help her forget, and having a man like John see her stretch marks, the evidence of the child she still didn’t have, it was too damned painful.

 

She grasped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it down, covering herself.

 

“You want to stop?” His black eyes lifted to hers, his hands braced on her hips.

 

“Do you?”

 

His chuckle blew warm breath over her mound before he pressed a kiss to her. “No. Take a good look at me. I ain’t exactly kicking women off my roof because they got a couple marks.”

 

Nora tore her gaze away. The way he looked at her was too close, too personal. Too much hunger in that gaze, too much meaning. It was too damned familiar.

 

So she let her eyes slide closed, and he must have taken the hint because his next kiss was to the top of her cleft. At least with his mouth otherwise occupied, he wouldn’t be talking to her. She wouldn’t have to hear every word that rumbled from his throat, wouldn’t have to block out the way they affected her.

 

The first swipe of his tongue had her back arching and her foot pressing against his shoulder.

 

That fucking laugh had her shivering.

 

“Been a while? You wind up that easily for me, and tonight’s going to be a lot of fun. You wanted me to help you forget, well by the time I’m done with you, you won’t remember a fucking thing but me.” He moved in again, his lips against her clit, careful to not stroke his tongue directly against her clit.

 

Which was a fucking miracle, because most men seemed to think a clit was some sort of button where the harder you pressed, the quicker a woman got off. Maybe for some others, Nora couldn’t claim to be an expert, but she’d found herself in the years before Nate having to explain this to her partners.

 

If he was this attentive, she could understand why John got the looks he did.

 

He circled her clit with his lips and sucked, pulling at her clit with gentle draws that had her kicking his shoulder with the foot still there. He wrapped his arms beneath her thighs to hold her tight as he kept the suction steady, drawing her toward that release.

 

She’d come on her own fingers a few times since waking up. She’d even suspected Danse heard her a time or two, but this was different. It was always different with someone. The weight of his body, the heat of his mouth, the grip of his fingers. It was the difference between thinking in your own head and a conversation, and she’d so missed conversing.

 

She broke apart against his mouth, a soft cry on her lips as she came. He softened the suction but didn’t release, his tongue brushing her clit to prolong it, to pull another wave just as she started to settle. “Stop,” she whimpered as she squirmed.

 

John did as she asked, though he drug his tongue up her slit once more, lapping up her wetness like he was starved for it.

 

His cheek brushed her thigh in a nuzzle that was too familiar, too damned sweet. One last kiss on her thigh and he moved up her body, his coat hanging down around them.

 

#

 

John stared down at his wife, her cheeks flushed, sweat on her forehead. Fuck, she’d never looked better.

 

He’d missed this, missed her. No one else came close to giving him this feeling. Her hands slid into where his shirt hung open, moving around to grip his ribs.

 

His head pressed against hers. “Tell me you want me.”

 

“We aren’t those sorts of people. You want to get off? Well, I’m offering. That’s the best you’re going to get.”

 

He released a sigh before his tongue darted out to taste her lips. “Fine. I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.” He pressed forward, her warmth enveloping him.

 

Oh fuck.

 

She was so damned warm, her cunt squeezing him because of how sensitive she was after she’d come. And he knew her well enough to know she would be. Two hundred years wouldn’t be enough for him to forget how she gripped him, to forget the tiny gasps and the way she’d struggle against him even as her nails clung to him.

 

Again she pulled him backward. They weren’t here. Fuck this place.

 

They were in their old house after he’d gotten home from an assignment. He’d brought her a gift and a smile and she’d thrown her arms around him. They hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. He’d laid her out on the floor, their clothing torn off enough to work around. His back was killing him later and she had carpet burn on her knees, but fuck it had been worth it.

 

“Fucking hell, you feel good, Nora.” He buried his face against her neck as he fucked her, chasing the missing years, trying to get back every damned time he’d thought about her. “So perfect, sunshine. Always so fucking perfect.”

 

She froze beneath him, but he didn’t care. At least, not until she shoved his shoulders.

 

He pulled back but didn’t pull out of her.

 

Confusion colored her features, her eyebrows drawn together.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“You called me sunshine.”

 

Fuck. “Not a pet name you’re a fan of?” He tried for nonchalance but knew panic bled through them. She'd always put him on the defensive.

 

She pushed harder against his chest, her breath thundering out of her lungs like she couldn’t breathe.

 

John pulled out of her and moved back to rest on his knees.

 

Nora snapped her knees shut and scooted backward. “’Always so fucking perfect.’ That’s what you said. You called me sunshine. Everything was so damned familiar, the way you touched me, the way you look at me.”

 

John pulled his pants up. Didn’t need to go where this was going with his dick out. He didn't want Nora to have any extra targets if he couldn't talk his way out of this. “Hey, sunshine, breathe slower for me.”

 

She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you fucking call me that! It’s you, isn’t it?”

 

He said nothing back, unable to admit it but just as unable to deny it. Still, her harsh inhale said she’d read between the lines just fine.

 

The hurt that crossed her face wasn’t a surprise, and neither was the crack of her palm as it struck his cheek. 

 

His Nora always did have a temper.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 Nora couldn’t breathe. Even in the open on that rooftop, she couldn’t get her damned lungs to draw in air.

 

It all made sense. The way he’d looked at her, the draw, the reason she’d fallen for him when she hadn’t fallen for anyone.

 

It was because she’d fallen for him over two hundred years ago. She'd never had a chance, had she?

 

A broken laugh left her throat at the stupid chance of it all while she pulled on her clothing. She’d spent all this time mourning a man who wasn’t dead. Of course, he wasn’t dead! He’d just left her like he always did, gone about his own life like nothing else mattered.

 

Hands settled on her arms, trying to pull her against his chest. So much like the last time he’d left, when she’d screamed at him.

 

She was done screaming. She'd yelled and screamed for years and it hadn't done a damned thing. 

 

Nora shoved him back, tearing away from him. “Don’t you touch me.”

 

He held his hands up while she tried to search his face for some speck of her Nate. Not in the missing nose, the gnarled skin, the black eyes. In the subtle cock of his eyebrow, the stubborn set of his jaw?

 

Ah, there he was.

 

“Come on. Let’s sit and talk about this. We’ll figure it out.”

 

“What is there to figure out? You saw me walk in, you knew exactly who I was, and you lied to me. I think that sums this up pretty well.” She turned to leave. She couldn’t look at him again, not for a second or she might crumble into the familiar, into what she knew he could provide.

 

When he was around, but she also knew he was never around for long.

 

No, she couldn’t fall into that trap again, into needing him. The world had become to harsh a place for that.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Away from you. You didn’t want me before, why would I think it was any different now?” She knew her voice cracked at the end.

 

John, because she couldn’t think of him as Nate, grabbed her arm to spin her around and press his lips to hers. Again, that familiar old world swamped her, the memories of a thousand kisses, of the way she'd wrap around his body. She spat those memories away.

 

Nora yanked away again, and this time he let her go.

 

“Don’t leave town, sunshine. This conversation isn’t over.”

 

“Whatever you say, _Mayor_.” She used as much venom as she could in the title. 

 

Inside her room, Danse sat at the table, fingers on a rolled out map. His gaze shot up to her’s when she opened the door hard enough the handle struck the wall. “Nora? What’s the matter.” He was on his feet a heartbeat later.

 

“It’s him.”

 

Danse’s eyebrows pulled together. “Who? Shaun?”

 

She shook her head, closing the door and leaning her back against it. “Nate. John Hancock, he’s Nate.”

 

“You’re husband?” And wasn’t there loads of feeling behind those words?

 

If Nora ever had a question about if Danse wanted more, those words made it clear he did.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“How? How can he be here? Was he frozen as well?”

 

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

 

Danse’s hands opened and closed like he wanted to offer comfort but wasn’t sure it was welcome.

 

Nora made the choice easy when she walked over and wrapped her arms around him, grateful when he returned the embrace. She needed this, someone who wasn’t going to walk out on her. She couldn’t trust it too far, had learned that, but for the moment she needed it.

 

She’d needed it from John, but she knew better than to trust him.

 

She took a deep breath before turning her face up to look at him, though she didn’t move away. “What were you doing?”

 

“Planning. The Glowing Sea isn’t somewhere you wander into with a plan.” He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head before pulling back to point at the map. “We will head to the airport to pick up your power armor. No arguments, Nora, the radiation in the Glowing Sea is nothing to trifle with. You can deal with wearing power armor for the trip. We can then take a vertibird to the northern border of the Glowing Sea, here.” His finger tapped against a spot near the bottom of the map. “Vertibirds don’t fly well in that level of radiation, so we’ll go on foot from there.”

 

“Okay. That’s a good plan.”

 

He said nothing for a moment, shoulders tense and straight. “What does he want?”

 

She didn’t pretend to not know what he meant. “I don't know. For me to stay in town, at least. He said our conversation wasn’t over yet.”

 

“And what do you plan to do?”

 

That was the reminder she needed. She’d always waited for him, hadn’t she? She’d always stayed no matter how many times he’d run off. She’d let her life slip away as she waited for him.

 

She wasn’t going to do it again.

 

“Let’s get out of here. I have shit to do.”

 

#

 

_Nate threw himself against Maxson’s bulk, but the man wouldn’t be moved. They’d sparred a thousand times, but this was real. Maxson was in his way, and he’d take the man apart to get past him._

 

_“Stand down!”_

 

_“Fuck you!” Nate threw a punch, nailing Maxson in the jaw._

 

_Two other soldiers rushed forward, but Maxson raised a hand to stop them. “I could have you court-martialed for that.”_

 

_“We’ve broken away from the military, Roger, who are you going to tell on me to? You want to kick me out now? Just show me the door and I’ll go.”_

 

_Maxson spat blood on the floor, his cheek already darkening. “I’m not letting you go out there to die.”_

 

_“Nora is out there.”_

 

_“And she’s dead! It’s all gone, all of it. You saw the reports, the final messages. If you walk out there now the only thing you’re going to do is add another body to the list.”_

 

_“I’ll find her. I’ll find them both.”_

 

_“There are things even you can’t do, Nate. I’m not going to let you go get yourself killed on a fool's errand.” Maxson nodded and other soldiers came forward._

 

_Nate put up one fucking fight. He laid out two of them, took a few hits of his own, but the numbers were against him and he wasn’t willing to kill anyone._

 

_A few hours later, Nate sat on the floor of his room, his bruised face aching, the door locked to keep him in. When it slid open, he knew it only opened for one person._

 

_“How could you do this to me, Roger? We were friends.”_

 

_“We are friends, and that is exactly why I’m doing this. If there was any chance of them surviving, I’d let you go. The reports show that anything that close to the bomb is gone, and I will not lose my only friend on a suicide mission. Consider this repayment for all the times you’ve saved my life.”_

 

_“I should have never left them. They died alone because I was too busy with everything else. I should have been there.”_

 

_"Then you'd be dead with them."_

 

_"So? I could have held her when it happened. She shouldn't have been alone, her and Shaun."_

 

_Maxson set a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “That doesn’t mean your life is over. We’re all alive here, and it means there is still a future. I am hoping you can help me build that future. Maybe we can both make-up for our past mistakes that way?”_

 

_When Nate said nothing back, Maxson sighed and left._

_There was no making up for what Nate had done. He’d left his wife and newborn child alone so he could run off on some adventure. When Maxson had finally admitted why there were there, to overthrow the base because they’d been performing testing on military prisoners, Nate had stayed. He’d dug in, side by side with Maxson._

 

_And when the military didn’t care that they’d defected? When after three days they’d received no reply? Nate had started to doubt the plan. A line in the sand only worked if someone cared._

 

_Then the bombs had fallen, and Maxson had gotten everyone inside, sealed the base, families and soldiers alike, but not his family._

 

_No, his family was still in Boston, at least their bodies would be. The infant who never got to say his first word and his wife who he’d never gotten one last kiss from. Their bodies would be rotting in the radiation and yet he was alive._

 

_He’d run and he’d ended up alive._

 

_Nate grabbed the jet out of his nightstand and let the chems steal away a little of that pain._

 

John grabbed the jet from his coat and let the chems steal away the memory. He knew what happened, he didn’t need to relive it every fucking day.

 

It had been two days since he’d seen Nora. He’d placed guards at the gates, not that subtle but effective. He didn’t want to risk her skipping town before they could hash this out.

 

But to what end? He didn’t want her forgiveness.

 

What a fucking lie. He wanted it, but he damned well didn’t deserve it, wouldn’t expect it. That didn’t change that he’d help her. He’d help to get Shaun back because that was his son, his flesh and blood, and no matter what happened, she was his wife. She always would be. Even if she moved on, even if she married that fucking stick up his ass soldier boy, she'd be John's wife forever.

 

He’d buy them a nice farm somewhere, hire some guards to keep ‘em safe. Yeah, maybe that would help make up for everything he’d done.

 

Caps were shit to him. He’d had a lot of years to collect them and more rolled in all the time. Turns out the chem and liquor business was good when everything went to shit.

 

“Boss?”

 

John lifted his gaze to MacCready. “What did you find?”

 

The kid kicked his foot against the doorframe to knock dried mud from his boots. “Exactly like you said it’d be. A graveyard of tubes with lots of dead bodies. One open, the one across from it with a dead woman. Looked like you described.”

 

Didn’t surprise John. He’d figured she’d been telling the truth.

 

Well, it could all be an Institute ploy, but he didn’t see an endgame there, not when Nora had already taken out their best operative, and that had to put a hell of a kink in their plans.

 

No. He believed with everything he had she was real.

 

Real and really fucking pissed. She’d bought Daisy out of food that didn’t need cooking that first day and hadn’t left the room since. Probably huddled up in there crying her eyes out or waiting to shoot his dick off when he came knocking, and he would come knocking.

 

It took another day before John had had enough. Fuck this waiting bullshit.

 

He stormed up to Clair. “What room is she in?”

 

“Who?”

 

“The fucking vaultie.”

 

“Room 8, second floor.”

 

“She there now?”

 

“Hasn’t left in two days that I know of.”

 

He took the stairs two at a time. Nora could scream at him, slap him again, but she wasn’t going to fucking ignore him.

 

Room 8. He stopped in front of it and pounded on the door. “Open up, sweetheart!” And, yeah, sweetheart was loosely translated to bitch at that moment.

 

No answer.

 

“I’ll kick down this fucking door. We need to talk, to work this shit out. The things going on are too important to let this get in the way.”

 

Still nothing.

 

Fine.

 

He stepped back and kicked the fucker, the old wood splintering. Clair could bill him for it.

 

And inside the room was. . . nothing. No sign she’d been there in days. No clothing, no food, no gear.

 

It meant Nora had somehow skipped out of his city without him knowing. For the first fucking time, she’d been the one to run, and worse? She’d outsmarted him. Seemed his wife had learned a few tricks over the years, but so had he.

 

If she thought she could hide from him, she had no idea who exactly she was married to.


	7. Chapter 7

Nora set her leg up on the rock, her back against the tree. The stimpack had sped healing, but the previously broken femur would still hurt for days.

 

As it turned out, the deathclaws in the Glowing Sea made the ones she’d seen before look like tame pets. This alpha deathclaw had leapt out from behind a downed bridge, taking Danse and her by surprise. While they’d taken it down with a lot of bullets and blood, its final attack was to lift Nora and throw her. The suit protected most of her, but the metal of the frame had snapped beneath the force when she’d struck the bridge and broken her femur.

 

Danse had helped her back, rigging the suit to take the weight for her as she healed.

 

Still, it was worth it.

 

It had taken them four days in total, but she had a plan, a way into the Institute. Steps meant she had objectives she could complete. Get a courser chip, decode it, take it to Virgil, get the schematics, built the teleporter, and get into the Institute.

 

A plan.

 

The plan helped her keep focused.

 

At least, it helped some of the time. The rest of the time her mind wanted back to John. What was he doing? Probably drinking and whoring in his town like the king he thought he was.

 

He’d never cheated on her while married. He was a lot of things, but he’d never been the type to stray. Sex had been one of the few things they'd agreed on, and while his missions meant they spent months apart, when they were together? Sex was a vice they shared. The chems and alcohol were another story. She’d fought with him about his chem usage, about his drinking. He wasn’t an angry drunk, didn’t get high and yell or hit her, but that glazed look he’d get in his eyes killed her. When he was high, he wasn't her husband. 

 

She hated the chems, always had.

 

Danse hadn’t asked about John again. She could see it sometimes, the desire to ask, to find out more, but he’d stayed quiet on the matter. Probably didn’t want to push where he wasn’t wanted, wishing for her to talk to him when she was ready.

 

Would she ever be ready?

 

What was there to say? She loved him, always would, but they’d failed a long time before.

 

At least she said that when she remembered the feeling of his lips, the way he'd pushed into her.

 

“I turn my back for a minute and look what happens.” The voice she dreamed about. He didn’t sound the same as he had before, his voice rough and raspy now. Must have been the scarring in his throat that caused the change.

 

Danse leveled his rifle at John but didn’t shoot. “What do you want me to do, Nora?”

 

John turned his gaze on Nora like daring he was her.

 

What did she what?

 

“Don’t shoot him,” she said.

 

Danse’s lips turned white as he pressed them together and set his weapon down.

 

“You think I can get a minute alone with my wife?”

 

Nora nodded at Danse, and he walked off, leaving Nora and John alone by the fire.

 

“How’d you find me?”

 

John sat on the rock across the fire from her. “Wasn't that hard. I think you underestimate my influence.”

 

“I always underestimated you. What do you want? If you're hoping for a repeat of the roof, that isn't happening, not ever.”

 

"You really got any room to complain about that, sunshine? Pretty sure I got you off, and I was the one left in the dark with a hard-on." 

 

"You deserved it."

 

"Blue balls, the perfect punishment for any man, huh?" 

 

"I doubt they're blue. Like you didn't have plenty of women willing to help you out." She didn't let the conversation lapse enough for him to argue. "Go back to your town. Whatever you're hoping to find here, you won't get it." 

 

“In case two hundred years is long enough you’ve forgotten, Shaun is my kid as well.”

 

“So now you want to be father of the year?”

 

“What I want is to make sure my son is safe, the same as always.” His gaze lowered to her leg. “What happened?”

 

“Alpha deathclaw.”

 

He swallowed hard, then nodded. “Can I take a look?”

 

“It’s already been treated. Danse gave me a stimpack, wrapped it, it’s fine.”

 

“I didn’t ask if it was fine, I asked if I could take a look.”

 

Nora shrugged. Better to play it off like she didn’t care instead of showing how much he got to her. He didn’t deserve to know he could still hurt her. “Knock yourself out.”

 

John came over, moving to his knees in front of her. He slipped his fingers into the ankle of the loose sweats she wore, her more fitting clothing packed away. Last thing she wanted was to have to remove her pants each time she needed to check the injury. She and Danse had seen each other undressed a few times, as happened when you traveled with someone, but she didn’t care for stripping off her clothing in front of Danse with things as they were.

 

John shifted the fabric up over her calf, over her knee, until it bunched at her upper thigh. A large white wrap surrounded her lower thigh, the place where the bone had punctured through. He worked the wrap off, hands surprisingly gentle. “How’d you get out of town?”

 

“You mean without your goons at the gate knowing? Believe it or not, it wasn’t that hard. Your town is built to keep people out, not to keep them in. How long did it take you to realize I was gone?”

 

“Three fucking days, sunshine. Three days when I figured you were pouting in your room. Should have figured it out sooner and maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” He released a low whistle. “Bone came all the way through the skin here, didn’t it?”

 

“Turns out even power armor doesn’t stand up to deathclaw attacks.”

 

He laughed, his bare fingers tracing the edges of the red wound. “It’s why I never wear the shit. It’s loud and clunky and makes people cocky. Can’t tell you how many Brotherhood assholes I’ve seen die because they thought that metal shit made ‘em invincible. Guess what? It doesn’t.”

 

She flinched when he pressed against the muscles near her knee.

 

“Sorry. Just wanted to make sure the muscles are knitting back together right. Sometimes, with something like this, they’ll bunch. Trust me, that ain’t the sort of shit you want to deal with.”

 

She hissed as he continued the inspection, her voice wavering. “You’ve dealt with many broken bones like this?”

 

“I was a soldier, Nora. ‘Course I dealt with shit like this. In fact, Roger had almost this same exact injury on our second mission. He cried and cursed more than you are. He was always getting hurt because he was the size of a car. Meant the enemy targeted him.”

 

Nora closed her eyes to block out the ache and sting of her leg. “I know his last living decedent, Arthur Maxson. They look a lot alike.”

 

#

 

John hesitated. He’d known Roger had children, grandchildren, had heard enough stories to know those descendants had run the Brotherhood after his death. Still, to hear about one individually, it stung in some strange way. A legacy John had never had. A legacy Roger would have loved to see.

 

“I miss Roger. We didn’t part on the best of terms, but I still miss him. He was a good man.” John leaned in and pressed a kiss to her knee. “I think you’ll live. Tin can managed the stimpack, I guess.”

 

Nora kept her eyes closed, her breathing rough. Yeah, getting her leg checked would hurt, and he knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t want any chems. “What are you expecting here?” Fuck, her voice sounded tired.

 

“Nothing. I ain’t here to worm my way back into your life, okay? Hell, if it wasn’t for Shaun, I’d have let you head out of Goodneighbor without you ever knowing it was me. Fucked up your life once, I ain’t looking to do it again.”

 

Her laugh was bitter, harsh. “Why would I think two hundred years might have changed you?”

 

“Well, I ain’t running. I’m here, even after you took off. I tracked your stubborn ass down and found you in the middle of nowhere.”

 

She peeled her eyes open, but damn they looked tired. “How are you here? How are you alive?”

 

“Let’s call that a story for another day, huh? We'll just say that, as usual, I took the long way.”

 

“That seems pretty much your way. If there’s an easy way and a hard way, you’ll take the hard one.”

 

“This coming from the woman who tracked down Kellogg and killed him? Who joined up with the fucking Brotherhood of Steel? Doesn’t seem like there’s a harder way than that.”

 

“Why do you hate them so much?”

 

“You mean other than the fact they want to kill everything that isn’t human and steal all the tech?”

 

“Yeah, other than that.” Her lips tilted up, that dry humor he loved.

 

“You know Roger started the Brotherhood, sunshine. You know I was there, with him. You’re smart enough to put that shit together. Wasn’t a fan of what Roger started and ain’t seen anything in the years since to change that. A huge ship like theirs is pretty much waving the Maxson dick around, and as much as I loved that fucker, I’m sick of his family’s dick.”

 

“Well, you’re going to have to smile and play nice if you want to help, because we’re heading up to that dick ship tomorrow. I’ve been working with Arthur since the start, and he gives me the best chance to find Shaun.”

 

Bullshit. A Maxson had taken away his family, he doubted one was gonna help him get it back. Seemed to him the Maxson name was nothing but a curse to fuck his shit up.

 

Still, it wasn’t something he needed to argue about right then. He was really fucking tired of arguing with Nora.

 

“Us.” When she gave him a look of confusion, he offered a smile. “Gives us the best chance, sunshine. You ain’t doing this alone.”

 

She went to respond, but a yawn stole whatever she was going to say.

 

He pulled her pant leg down then moved away. “We’ll fight tomorrow, I’m sure. Get some sleep.”

 

He’d brought his own sleeping bag, would set up in the free space across from her and her buddy.

 

First though? The mentats in his pocket rattled about like a reminder. He'd hauled ass to find her after getting word about the power armor clad due passing a settlement he had eyes at, and it hadn't given him time to indulge. Made him shaky, antsy, desperate. 

 

John walked away from the fire. Nora hated when he used chems, and he didn’t need to piss her off any more than he already had.

 

He sat on the damp ground, back to a tree, before popping a mentat into his mouth.

 

“She dreams about you.”

 

John lifted his gaze to Paladin Asshole. “Oh yeah? Her moaning keep you up at night?”

 

He crossed his arms over his wide chest.

 

John rubbed the heel of his hand against his own chest, against the sinew and bone there. He used to be larger, used to have muscle mass, but that shit took calories. John never ate enough to put on the muscle of this fucker. He’d stopped caring a long damned time ago. After he’d made it back to the Commonwealth, after he’d turned into this, food just didn’t matter. As a ghoul, he didn’t need much, but not eating much for two centuries turned you into little more than a skeleton. Right then though, when he stared at his replacement, right then he missed it.

 

“No. She wakes up crying.”

 

Ouch. John said nothing as he lit his cigarette. What was there to say back to that?

 

“You weren’t the one there to hold her when she woke up shaking and crying. You weren’t the one there when she went after Kellogg, when she found a teddy bear and held it and sobbed. You have not been the one here, so why are you here now?”

 

“Because that’s my kid you’re chasing after. Ain’t gonna hide with my head in the sand while she goes after him alone. Kid is my blood.”

 

“And yet you left them both.”

 

John narrowed his eyes as he flicked ash to the ground beside him. He could fight dirty. “And what are you looking for, crew cut? Because don’t think I’ve missed the way you’ve been eye fucking my wife. You hoping to get into her vault suit, huh? Is that the real reason you don’t want me around? Afraid of a little competition?”

 

Paladin’s face went red, jaw cranked down hard enough John worried his teeth might crack. “You might have been competition before, but now? Now you’re a junkie ghoul who left her. I can’t imagine that is a difficult thing to beat.”

 

Well, listen to this egotistical-

 

No. John shook his head. What the fuck was he doing? He wasn’t pursuing Nora anyway, so who the fuck cared what muscle and metal said?

 

Still, John’s maturity hadn’t ever been his strong suit, so when the asshole turned around to walk away, John couldn’t help one last quip. “When you do get your hands on her, I bet you’ll worry the whole time she’s thinking about me. Every sound she makes, you’ll be wondering if it’s you she’s wanting or if she’s wishing it was me. That’s the thing, soldier boy, it doesn’t matter what you do, I was there first. She’s always gonna be my wife.”

 

He didn’t stop, didn’t turn around, didn’t rise to the insult. Made John hate the asshole even more.

 

John sat alone, the chalk of the mentats still on his tongue and stuck to his teeth. Fuck, he should have kept is mouth shut. Using Nora like a club wasn't fair, and since he'd already figured she'd end up with this son of a bitch, why the hell was he needling him?

 

Because John knowing something was right was a lot different than accepted it. He might know Nora was never gonna be his again, might know in his head that she deserved better, but his fucking heart didn't seem willing to join up to that idea.

 

As always, his heart had its own fucking ideas. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Bringing John aboard the Prydwen proved more stressful than Nora had anticipated. First, she didn’t have Danse. As usual, he was called away the moment they’d returned to the airport. Everyone needed him for something as soon as they returned to Brotherhood territory.

 

It wasn’t that she needed Danse, she’d gotten used to the Prydwen on her own. However, he gave her a sense of strength she could have used right then. When things seemed to change too fast, when they shifted beneath her feet, Danse helped her hold steady.

 

She missed that strength.

 

Her husband walked behind her, so close he’d brush against her some of the time. Her husband who she didn’t know anymore. She didn’t even know how to talk to him, which was why they hadn’t spoken.

 

“You seem nervous, sunshine.”

 

“You could walk a few steps further back, you know. You’re going to step on my feet.”

 

“But I’m in enemy territory. I need to stay close so you can keep me safe.”

 

She twisted so fast, he had to jerk to a stop so he didn’t run into her. “Don’t play games with me.”

 

“Not a game. You killed Kellogg, you outsmarted me, must be pretty fucking tough. Why wouldn’t I stick close?”

 

“Because you don’t need to be this close.”

 

He leaned in, setting a hand on the wall behind her. “You afraid you’ll be tempted?”

 

“You don’t tempt me.”

 

“Really? Because you were making some really nice sounds when I had my lips between your legs, sunshine.”

 

“Maybe I wasn’t thinking about you.”

 

John came closer until he crowded her, despite his thin frame, despite the fact he wasn’t much taller than she was, he crowded her. “Oh yeah? You thinking about soldier boy? You imagining it was his tongue against you?”

 

“So what if I was? Like you said, we’re over and you aren’t trying to worm your way back in. We’re working together; that’s it.”

 

He called her a liar with his grin. “Sure. Think you can remember that? Because we got a lot of history between us, and if there was one place you and I never had a fucking problem, it was there. You remember that time in that little bathroom in the comic store? I set you up on the sink and reached right under that pretty dress you had on. The owner was banging on the door, yelling at us?”

 

Nora’s tongue drug along her lip even as she told herself not to show a reaction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“No? Because I remember how wet you were. Two hundred years ain’t enough time to forget the way you felt, to forget your teeth in my shoulder.”

 

“And who is this?” Arthur asked from behind them.

 

“Lucky,” John whispered with a wink before taking a step back.

 

Nora straightened her clothing, though it only made her look guiltier. “Danse got caught at the airport so I came to check in alone. Well, not alone. I mean. . . “

 

Hancock’s chuckle from beside her was infuriating. He said nothing to help her flustered words, just laughed.

 

Arthur recovered faster. “I see. We do not have ghouls aboard often, but Knight Jacobs protection should afford you some leeway. My name is Arthur Maxson and I am Elder here.”

 

“Elder,” John huffed. “Right.”

 

Nora brought her elbow back into John’s side before speaking to Arthur. “This is John Hancock, Mayor of Goodneighbor. He’s helping with local knowledge.”

 

“I see. Well, Mayor Hancock of Goodneighbor, why don’t you get something to eat downstairs while Knight Jacobs brings me up to date.”

 

John cocked up an eyebrow at Nora, the question clear. What was going on between Arthur and her?

 

None of his business was the answer, so Nora only lifted her eyebrow in return.

 

“Sure, brother. Could use some lunch.” He lifted two fingers to his brow in a mocking salute. “See you down there, sunshine.”

 

Once John had left, Arthur nodded toward his quarters. Nora followed him there, sitting in a chair at his table as he shut the door.

 

She got along well with Arthur. Even after their failure of a kiss, they’d become friends.

 

He did remind her of Roger, though she’d never admitted to him she’d known his ancestor. He’d asked little about her past, and she’d offered nothing. They worked best by looking toward the future.

 

“So what is the story with the ghoul? Or do you want to continue to lie to me?”

 

Leave it to Arthur to spot her attempts at evasion. He might be young, but he’d become Elder for good reason. He was smart and driven.

 

“He’s Nate, my husband.”

 

Points to Arthur for not rattling. He pulled out another chair from the table and sat. “Your husband? My understanding was that he was dead.”

 

“That was my understanding as well. Seems dead isn’t what it used to be.”

 

Neither said anything for a moment, and the silence made Nora pull at the collar of her jumpsuit. Just admitting who John was, who he had been, made her want to run.

 

“And how does that change your plans?”

 

“Why do you think they’ve changed?”

 

He set an elbow on the table. “You are here with him, and that alone tells me it has changed. Not to mention, there is still something there.”

 

“Between him and I? No, there isn’t. I was a bad wife and he was a worse husband. Two hundred years doesn’t make that better.”

 

“So today is just a day you’ve decided to lie to me?” He stared at her for a moment before releasing a soft laugh. “Or don’t you even realize you’re lying? Do you remember the day I tried to kiss you?”

 

“Trust me, that isn’t the sort of thing I’d forget.”

 

“You kissed me back at first, but when I pulled back, it was Nate’s name on your lips. It’s been clear from day one that you haven’t been available. You never moved on from him.”

 

“You do realize that I’m the only one on this ship willing to shoot you, right?”

 

He laughed, and again Nora found herself wishing she had been interested in him. She wished she’d wanted him, that she’d been able to return whatever attraction he’d had. It wasn’t love, nothing so foolish, but just desire would have been enough.

 

Arthur was smart, young, ambitious, handsome.

 

“And what are you thinking about? Or should I ask?”

 

Nora came over and leaned in, her lips brushing against his in a desperate attempt to prove that she didn’t want John, that she didn’t need him. Her hands twisted in Arthur’s coat.

 

Maybe it was wrong to use Arthur like this, to try to get him to reassure her, but if there was anyone who could keep things uncomplicated, it was Arthur.

 

He returned her kiss, hand going behind her neck to pull her into his lap. His other hand went to her hip, fingers drifting below the hem of her shirt, warm against her skin. When he broke the kiss, when he went to her throat, his beard scratched against her skin.

 

Nora spread her thighs around his hips in the chair to settle in his lap, and Arthur’s interest in the kiss was obvious and rubbing against her.

 

But . . . it wasn’t right. She tried to shove the thoughts away, the feeling that it wasn’t what she wanted, that something was missing. She wanted this to work. She wanted to wipe away all the indecision of John. If she could have Arthur, even just a quickie, maybe she could get John out of her system.

 

It was clear John had been screwing everything in sight for two hundred years, but Nora hadn’t. Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t care anymore.

 

Arthur pulled away, a heavy sigh on his lips before he kissed her forehead like he had the last time they’d tried. “You are miles away, Nora.”

 

She shook her head and tried to recapture Arthur’s lips. “I’m not. It’s fine.”

 

He held her away from him. “It’s not fine. If you wanted me, even just for some fun, I’d be more than happy to help. The moment I touch you, though, your head starts going and you go wherever it is you go in that head of yours.” He moved her off his lap as he stood.

 

“This needs to work, though.”

 

Arthur scrubbed his hand over his face. “Ah, I get it. You’re hoping that if you sleep with me, you won’t care about Nate being back, right?”

 

When he said it like that, it sounded so seedy. She sat back in her own seat and dropped her face into her hands. “I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?”

 

He groaned softly as he crouched in front of her, removing her hands from her face so she’d look at him. “Maybe, a little.” A smile said the barb was supposed to be a joke. “I get it, and we’d never know if we didn’t try, right? However, I’d suggest you stop trying to fix a wound by jumping into another fight. Deal with whatever you have between you and Nate.”

 

“I don’t want him back.”

 

“I’m not saying you need to take him back. Scream at him, shoot him, whatever it takes, deal with everything unfinished between you two or you’ll never move past it.”

 

She took a deep breath, suddenly exhausted. “Thank you, Arthur. You’re a good friend.”

 

He nodded and helped her to her feet. “Of course. Oh, and Nora? If you ever want to try again, I’d be more than happy to test out if you’re over him or not.”

 

#

 

After an hour of insults, John felt close to his limit in terms of patience. He wanted to snap at the arrogant assholes who paraded around in their power armor.

 

He’d helped build their fucking organization.

 

Wonder what they’d think about that if they found out that a ghoul was responsible for them even having a fucking Brotherhood.

 

After all the times he’d saved Roger, they should be kissing his ghoul ass, not smarting off to him.

 

Still, some med-x kept him relaxed. Fuck them and their stupid insults. Assholes thought they were being clever as if he’d never heard those same fucking jokes a million times before.

 

At least be original.

 

Nora hadn’t returned from her conversation with Arthur.

 

He tried to say he didn’t care, that he hadn’t seen the looks they’d exchanged, the way Arthur had stared at her.

 

And fuck if Arthur didn’t look like Roger. Younger, fuller of himself, but those were the same eyes, the same jaw. He’d have pinned him as a Maxson the moment he saw him.

 

Nora walked past him, not even meeting his gaze. She went up the stairs, disappearing.

 

John got to his feet and followed her, finding her outside the door on a small balcony at the back of the Prydwen. It left them alone with only the wind and the view.

 

“I don’t want to fight with you,” she said.

 

Her voice had him stilling. He’d heard that voice before, on the nights when fighting with him had grown to be too much.

 

His Nora had loved to yell, to spit curses and insults, but eventually, all that anger would fizzle out. She wouldn’t cry usually, would just go silent. She’d shake her head, dig her palms into her eyes, and lie down like she had nothing left to give.

 

It had always killed him. He could take the yelling, the screaming, the fighting. He couldn’t take when she just. . . stopped.

 

“Ain’t going to fight with you, sunshine.” He sat down beside her, letting his legs dangle over the edge with her.

 

Redness spread over her neck, a redness that wasn’t hard to identify. A rash from a beard scratching against her. So it seemed Arthur had gotten somewhere with her.

 

“I couldn’t.”

 

“Couldn’t what?”

 

She didn’t turn to face him. “I wanted to wipe the slate clean, to start over, to finally put you behind me. I couldn’t even do that. Do you have any idea how much I hate you for that?”

 

He tried to set an arm around her shoulders, but she rolled her shoulders to knock his touch away.

 

“You, you who have been screwing your way through two hundred years, but I can’t move on. I’m just waiting for you again, my whole life on hold for you, like nothing has changed at all.”

 

“Nora-“

 

“Nora?” And look, it was fucking Paladin Five-o'clock shadow.

 

Nora wiped her arm across her eyes before she stood and turned toward him. “Yes?”

 

“Maxson has given Hancock a room for the evening. He said he wanted to ensure the ghoul lived through the night for your sake. It’s late, are you ready for bed?”

 

So the asshole planned on her spending the night with him? Of course, he did.

 

Fucker.

 

Nora nodded, lips pulled into a forced smile. “Sure. Yeah, I’m really tired.” She hesitated but didn’t turn back toward John like she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “Goodnight.”

 

“Night, sunshine.”

 

They left him alone on the small walkway, alone while his wife went to fall asleep beside another man.

 

He stared out over the commonwealth and wondered how things could change so much and yet not change at all. Here he was, still hurting her, and she was still hating him.

 

Guess something things are just fucking constants.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 Nora slept in Danse’s bed often. Why did it feel so strange all of a sudden? The ease had disappeared, and she laid beside him stiff and uncomfortable.

 

Sharing beds was a logistical truth in the Commonwealth and on the Prydwen. Nora could sleep in the bunks with the other soldiers, but that seemed absurd when there was a perfectly good private room available.

 

So, when on the Prydwen, she slept in Danse’s room. Sometimes he was in the bed as well, sometimes he was gone. It had never been uncomfortable, just a part of life she almost looked forward to. Some reminder of an old life.

 

That night, however, him sleeping on the side by the wall, his arm pressed against hers, felt different. Wrong.

 

After tossing and turning for hours, Nora gave up the fight and slid from the bed.

 

“Are you okay?” Sleep saturated Danse’s voice.

 

“Yeah. Sorry to wake you, I just can’t sleep. I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

 

He sat up, the springs of the bed groaning. He wore a shirt to bed, probably for her comfort more than his own. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you?”

 

Nora turned to face Danse. She owed him the truth, at least. “Maybe. Does that bother you?”

 

“It shouldn’t. He’s your husband.”

 

“He _was_ my husband.”

 

His head tilted, a sad smile on his lips. “You don’t believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be heading off to see him now. You wouldn’t let him into your head like you do. I’m not angry, Nora, I’m just being honest. I don’t like him, and I don’t like him here, and I really don’t like him around you. I guess I always thought. . . “

 

When he didn’t continue, Nora prompted him. “Thought what?”

 

He sighed and drug his fingers through his hair. “I always thought we would end up together. After everything was over, after we fixed everything, I had thought some how we would still end up together. I am not unaware of some feelings between Maxson and yourself, but that was not serious. I never really thought it wouldn’t happen for us until I saw you and Hancock together.”

 

Nora opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out.

 

He shook his head and laid back down. “It’s okay. Just go.”

 

Nora left, leaving all her things in the room. She couldn’t stand in that room another moment, not with the hurt in Danse’s voice.

 

What made it worse was the lack of anger, the lack of any blame. He wasn’t furious with Nora, just hurt because something he’d wanted he didn’t think he’d get.

 

The cold of the Prydwen ground soaked into Nora’s feet as she went through the hallways. She hadn’t put on shoes and she wore pajamas. If Arthur saw her, he’d lecture her over appropriate clothing.

 

Nora knew what room John would be in. Arthur would place him in the one nearest the guards to help reduce the odds of any accidents.

 

Her hand set on the handle where she hesitated.

 

What would she say? What did she want?

 

As usual, she went in to dealing with him unprepared.

 

#

 

John sat on the ground, an open tin of mentats in his lap. The swaying of the ship made him sick. He’d spent days on ships pre-war, but that had been a long fucking time before.

 

He lacked the stomach for it anymore.

 

The door to his room opened and Nora slid in like something from his dreams. She wasn’t dressed in fighting gear, in brotherhood jumpsuits or dresses. No, this was the woman he had slept beside.

 

A loose shirt bagged over her frame, large enough the neck could drift over and expose a shoulder. It hit mid-thigh, and he wondered if it was Danse’s.

 

No shoes were on her feet, which seemed really damned stupid with the chill of the metal.

 

“Why am I not surprised to find you like this?”

 

He clicked the lid of the mentats closed and slid them into his pocket. He’d already taken his dose, so what did it matter? “Because you know me. Much as you might wish you never met me, you did, and you fucking know me well.”

 

She sat down in front of him, her long legs crossing in front of her, peeking out from beneath the shirt. “Why do you still do this to yourself?”

 

“It helps.”

 

“Helps what?”

 

“Helps me forget. Got a lot of years of memories up here, sunshine.” He tapped at his temple. “Over two hundred years of bullshit. Seen people born, seen ‘em all die, seen rulers come to power and get slaughtered, seen the world end.”

 

“Since you've been back, I've been thinking about Roger. How did he die?”

 

“Never asked your precious Elder? Bet you the Codex has some bullshit story in it, probably all lies. Fuckers probably said he died slaughtering ghouls or something. The truth? it was cancer.” He released a harsh laugh. “Sort of funny, ain’t it? The one fucking thing I couldn’t do shit about. There ain’t any bullets to take for that. After everything he and I lived through, it was his own fucking body that killed him.”

 

She leaned against the bed, her arm folded on the mattress to keep her head up. The girl’s eyes were dark and sunken. She needed some sleep. “You were there with him?”

 

“Not for a long time. I left, but he sent word when he knew he was heading out. Sent me a letter with a soldier, told me he had one last run and he couldn’t imagine taking it with anyone else. We hadn’t spoken in years, but fuck, when Roger called I came. Always was that way.”

 

“If you weren’t with him before, where were you? You have two hundred years I don't know anything about.”

 

John reached out and caught Nora’s feet, uncrossing them and pulling them into his lap. They were like icicles, so he slid his hands around them to warm them. “I went to California. That’s where I was when the bombs fell, at a base in California. Spent eight years there with Roger until his Brotherhood bullshit got to me, before I left.”

 

A soft moan left her lips from where he rubbed her feet. She cut it off as soon as it started as if she didn’t want him to even have the pleasure of knowing his touch affected her. “Where did you go?”

 

“Back here. Commonwealth was my home.”

 

Nora nodded toward his face. “And this? Did it happen because of the bombs?”

 

Fuck. That wasn’t a question he wanted to answer, but she deserved the truth.

 

“Nah. This happened later, when I got back here. I, uh, I went looking for you. For you and Shaun. I knew you were dead but I went back to our house looking for something, anything. Thought maybe I could bury you both, maybe do something right. Couldn’t find any bones, though, couldn’t find a fucking thing.”

 

She said nothing as she stared at him, like she was trying to understand him, trying to put together who he'd been with the ghoul in front of her.

 

“So, I had this chem, and I knew what it would fucking do. Knew it would turn me into this, but hell, that was fine. Couldn’t stand to look at myself another day. Took it on the floor of our old house. That was. . . fuck, I don’t know. About ten years after the bombs fell. So, that’s how I ended up looking like this.”

 

“You went back to try to find us?”

 

John frowned and met her gaze. He knew she was pissed, but did she really not understand? How could she not know? “Course I did. I was a shitty husband and father, I know that. Never claimed to be good at either. I loved you both, though, more than anything. Would have done anything to get you back, to make it right. I fucked everything up, I know it, I admit it, I fucking hate myself for it. I searched for hours in that house looking for something of either of you, something I could bury, anything-“

 

Nora slid forward and into his lap, her lips going to his to silence him. She didn’t rush the kiss. It wasn’t the fast and desperate ones they exchanged on the roof. This was. . . different.

 

John returned it with the same hesitancy, the same uncertainty. His hand went to her side as she tilted her head for a better angle, her kiss so familiar.

 

He’d missed this so much. The feeling of someone against you who you knew. Not just bodies but someone who knew all the good and bad shit about you, someone who knew it and didn’t turn away.

 

She broke the kiss and set her forehead against his shoulder. Her voice came out muffled against his shirt. “What am I supposed to do, Nate?”

 

He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s John now, sunshine. Ain’t been Nate for a long time.”

 

“Guess everything changes, doesn’t it?”

 

He kissed the top of her head. “Not everything, no.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

Nora woke warm and wrapped in someone’s arms. She frowned.

 

Danse didn’t cuddle. If they shifted during the night, accidentally touching, he’d be quick to move away.

 

So why was he wrapped around her like a damned blanket? Warm skin pressed against her, an arm around her waist, breath against her neck.

 

She shifted to ease the tightness in her back while she tried to decide what to do.

 

“Morning, sunshine.”

 

John.

 

Nora bolted out of bed.

 

John sat up, eyes snapping open, blade in his hand like he was ready to fight off whatever had startled her. At least, until he realized it was her. “So much for a good morning, huh? Funner ways to get me up than that, sunshine.”

 

“I slept here?”

 

He looked around. “Guess so. You needed it anyway. Were dragging last night.”

 

Nora pulled the hem of her shirt like it could hide her thighs. In the morning like this, she felt far too on display. She’d spent the night in her husband’s bed. What the fuck had she been thinking? How could she be so stupid?

 

“Relax. Ain’t like we fucked.”

 

“Shut up.” She went to the door. “I can’t do this.”

 

She rushed from the room and down the hallway. All her clothes were in Danse’s room, so she needed to get back there. A glance at her pipboy told her she’d slept till almost noon, and that meant far more soldiers walked the Prydwen. A few glanced at her but had the good sense to pretend she wasn’t half naked and shoeless.

 

Well, everyone except Arthur, who caught her arm as she tried to rush past him. “Nora? Are you okay?”

 

She shook her head. “I just need to get dressed. I overslept.”

 

“You’re not wearing any shoes.” He lifted that dark eyebrow. “Or pants.”

 

Nora went to answer, but a heavy coat went around her shoulders. Not Arthur’s, though.

 

John stood behind her, and he’d set his red frock around her. “Too fucking cold to be out like this, sister.”

 

Arthur’s gaze darted between them for a moment before releasing her arm. “Paladin Danse was called away on a mission. I suggest you get dressed, Knight.”

 

She nodded and pulled away from John and Arthur, rushing to Danse’s room to hide.

 

#

 

John hated not having his coat. That thing defined him anymore, something he could pretend he could live up to one day. Still, it was damned cold and Nora didn’t need to be running about in next to nothing.

 

Fuck, that was a disaster. He’d woken with Nora against him and for a moment, he’d forgotten.

 

He’d forgotten all of it in a way the chems could never manage. They were back to the start, back before she hated him, back before he gave her a reason to hate him.

 

Then she’d woken up and pulled away and it all came back.

 

And Elder Fuckwit stood there, tall and wide enough he looked down at John just like Roger had.

 

Fucking Maxson’s and their height.

 

“A word?”

 

“Don’t think you want any of the words I’m thinking,” John said, hands patting at his sides only to remember, again, he didn’t have his coat. All his cigarettes and chems were in his coat. Fucking great.

 

“Let me rephrase. You’re on my ship and I require a conversation. Come with me so we can speak in private or I’ll have you kicked off my ship. I imagine Nora would be unhappy with that.”

 

“Maxson’s never change. Lead the way.”

 

He followed Arthur into a small side room, similar to quarters but with a large conference table rather than a bed. Arthur took one seat while nodding at another for John.

 

“You here to tell me off of Nora?”

 

“No. I don’t own her.”

 

“So, you gonna tell me it wasn’t your beard that left those scratches on her neck?” John pulled his blade from his belt to roll it over his knuckles. He’d rather have smoked, but Nora had all his shit. Something to keep his hands busy during this conversation was probably good.

 

Something that wasn’t sharp and murdery would have been better, but he could only do what he could do.

 

“That isn’t your business.” Not a single tell. No blush, no lifted eyebrow. He’d gotten Roger’s poker face, hadn’t he?

 

And worse? Roger was right. It wasn't John's business. Every fucking time he reminded himself that he was letting Nora go, he meant it. He was no good for her. She deserved someone a hell of a lot better than a washed-up junkie. Could be the Paladin, could be Arthur, could be anyone.

 

Still, every time he thought about any of these fuckers talking to her, touching her, his temper slipped and he wanted to mark his territory and run 'em off. 

 

“You know, if Roger were still alive, he’d smack you upside the head for laying a hand on Nora.”

 

“And why is that?”

 

“That girl was just about a sister to Roger. She never mention that? Fuck, you should have seen her yell at him when he got me hurt. One year, back when we were, twenty maybe, he had Christmas dinner with us. Idiot dared to try to steal a cookie before she’d put them out. She slapped his hand, and his eyes went wide, and I ain’t never seen a man apologize so fast.” The same smile that always happened when he thought about his old friend spread over his lips.

 

Damn, he missed him. Hadn’t really made another good friend like that afterward.

 

John shook it away. “So Nora is almost your aunt. Now, I’m into some kinky shit, but trying to fuck your aunt is off even my list.”

 

“You’re trying to tell me she knew Roger Maxson?”

 

“Yep. So maybe keep your dick away from your aunt?”

 

Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and fuck if he didn’t look like Roger right then. The eyes were different. Maybe he got those from his mother’s side? Or from someone else somewhere along the line, because they weren’t Roger’s. “And you are expecting me to believe you knew him? You don’t strike me as the sort who he would associate with.”

 

“Look in your precious Codex, back in the history area. You’ll find it mentions Nate Jacobs. You never connected that shit with Nora Jacobs?”

 

“Jacobs is a common last name. You could have known that name from anything; it proves nothing.”

 

“Maybe not, but we both know Roger would have left you his journal. Would have passed that shit right down the lines. That black leather one? Yeah, look in there near the front. He would have written all about our mission in China, and fuck knows he probably lied his ass off, but he’ll have mentioned the bullet I took in the thigh because he decided to flirt with a local. So, once you figure out I’m telling the truth, stop trying to fuck my wife, huh?”

 

“Your wife? Are you sure you’re not taking liberties that you lost two hundred years ago?”

 

John’s fingers tightened around the handle of his blade before he cracked a grin and put the knife away. “Maybe, brother, maybe. We done?”

 

Arthur stood. “For now.”

 

#

Nora hadn’t seen John or Danse, and she couldn’t be more thankful. She had no desire to see either of them at the moment.

 

She didn’t want to see the hurt on Danse’s face, and John managed to make her forget everything she thought. He made her forget why she was angry with him, all the ways he’d hurt her over the years, and all the reasons she shouldn’t get involved with him again.

 

Yes, he could help her find Shaun. He deserved to do that, and she needed the help. It didn’t mean a thing needed to happen between them, though. She wasn’t sure she could survive another lifetime with him, another lifetime of being left behind constantly.

 

No. She was stronger than that now.

 

Arthur had stopped her in near Teagan’s shop, explained that Danse would be gone for a while. Arthur been distant like he was deep in thought even as he went through the motions of command. She didn’t press the issue, gave him his privacy. He'd talk to her when he was good and ready.

 

She didn’t blame Danse for wanting space, though it stung. They'd spent so much time together, but he'd left without a word. 

 

Though she'd left in the middle of the night to go to the room of another man. She had no high ground there.

 

It meant Nora would be heading out without him, because she couldn’t wait for Danse. Just her and John, alone.

 

She pulled her pack over her shoulder. They had the use of a vertibird, thanks to Arthur. It would speed up their task. A trip to Bunker Hill, a courser to kill, all easy enough tasks. Running them through her head helped distract her from the thoughts there, from the stresses that refused to leave her. 

 

John leaned against the railing by the vertibird, his own pack by his feet. He slid back on his coat when Nora handed it to him. “Thanks.”

 

She nodded but refused to look him in the eye. “Danse is busy, so it’s just you and I heading out.”

 

He said nothing back at first, fingers sliding into the pocket of his coat to pull out his mentats. He popped one into his mouth. “We can handle it.”

 

She wanted to agree with him, to take a bit of that confidence for herself, but she couldn’t. Instead, she turned and hauled herself into the vertibird. “Let’s go.”

 

She steeled herself against anything he offered. They were working together, nothing more. She had to remember it, had to dig that into her skin so she couldn’t forget. She couldn't fall back into his charm again. It didn't matter how lonely the nights got, how warm and familiar he was, she couldn't end up falling for him again.

 

He hopped into the vertibird behind her and sat on the bench. “I’ll follow you anywhere, sunshine.”

 

How could she keep her wits about her when he said things like that?


	11. Chapter 11

 The cigarette clamped between John’s lips released smoke from the lit end that pooled at the brim of his hat then floated up toward the ceiling.

 

In the morning they were catching themselves a courser. Following a signal from the old CIT ruins, hopefully catching the asshole by surprise and slicing a chip out of the back of his neck.

 

Talk about a hell of a date. Made sense in some weird way. He and Nora weren't the type for dinner and movies, not with all the pain and history between 'em. 

 

He pulled the cigarette away to flick ash on the ground through the window of the room they’d rented in Bunker Hill. Only one room. It was like a bad romance novel. The only motel only has a single bed.

 

Nora was off doing her own shit. Avoiding him, selling items, talking to people, probably offering to save ‘em. His wife had a selfless streak a mile wide.

 

Not that John had ever minded helping. Was one of the reasons he’d become a soldier in the first place, one of the reasons he’d taken over Goodneighbor and hung Vic from the balcony. You had to stand up for the little guy when they couldn’t, but Nora took it too far.

 

She stood up for people who were just too chicken-shit to do it themselves. She’d run herself into the ground in no time flat if she didn’t learn to pace herself, to tell people no. The wasteland liked to chew up and spit out anyone it could.

 

They hadn’t spoken since leaving the Prydwen. The vertibird had let ‘em down in Bunker Hill, as good a place as any to set up their plan.

 

Seemed they were quite the power couple since the guard at the gate had recognized both of them. Woman had let them in so fast, Nora hadn’t even gotten a chance to complain.

 

Fuck, Nora was trouble.

 

The more time he had to think about it, to see her walking around, the more he forgot all the damned reasons he was supposed to be thinking with his head and not his dick.

 

His dick wanted to tease her, to pull her close, to taste her. It wanted to strip off her clothes again and this time really enjoy it.

 

His head? It said he needed to leave her the fuck alone because he’d already fucked this shit up once. Wasn’t that enough? Once you shoot someone in the face, there wasn’t a need to double tap and unload a few more shots.

 

He’d hurt her enough. Even if she wanted him again, he knew better. He’d never be enough for her, and it would cause him to forever run.

 

It’s all he was good at. Running because he knew he wasn’t worth shit. Nora would be better off without him, and once Shaun was back? Fuck, they’d both be happier if he was long gone.

 

The door opened, and he kept his gaze outside. Easier than looking at Nora.

 

“Hey there, sunshine.”

 

The floorboards creaked, and arms wrapped around him. No hesitation, no uncertainty. One hand groped his cock through his pants, offering gentle squeezing that had his eyes sliding closed.

 

“In a friendly mood, there?”

 

“When I realized you were in town? Fuck, yeah I was.” The voice was thin, strung out, and not that of his wife.

 

John twisted so his ass was on the windowsill, his back to the outside. He flicked his cigarette out the window.

 

Yeah. The woman was. . . Keri? Karren? K. . . something. Fuck if he knew. He’d had a few strung out nights with her. He used her for cheap and easy sex and she used him for his plentiful supply of chems.

 

They’d spent those nights in a haze, fucking and getting high and forgetting everything else.

 

She’d lost weight. Her stomach was caved in, showing because all she wore were those stupid raider harnesses. Was she a raider? He didn’t know, hadn’t asked her shit, hadn’t cared enough to ask. Dark circles made caverns of her eyes, hair stringy and filthy. Her lips were painted in that red lipstick she liked to wear that he'd find on him after she left.

 

Fuck, that’s what he’d look like if he wasn’t a ghoul. One good thing about being one, he guessed. His life of chems didn’t make him look like a junkie.

 

And wasn’t it fucked up to judge K-something for it? He wasn’t any better, just better at hiding it.

 

“Whoah there, sister.” He grasped her arm to pull her hand from his crotch.

 

“What? You’re always up for some fun, Hancock. We’ll do it up like old times. Lock the door and fuck all day and all night and use up all your stash.” She leaned in despite his grip on her arm, and damn her shoulder must hurt from that angle. Still, the glazed look in her eyes said she’d already crawled halfway into a hit of jet.

 

“Missed your cock. Missed the way you’d hold me against the wall and fuck me.” Her words stumbled from her lips, slurred and broken. She dropped to her knees, her free hand undoing his belt.

 

He didn’t even know why he was turning her down.

 

Nora didn’t want him and he couldn’t have her, so who cared if he got some stress relief with someone else? She’d gotten off the last time, had screwed around with those Brotherhood fuckers, so wasn’t it his turn? Didn’t he deserve some fucking relief?

 

While he argued with himself, the girl undid his pants with a quick and practiced flick of her fingers and pulled his cock from his pants. She was on him in a heartbeat, mouth swallowing him, lips pressed against his body. He wasn’t hard, and one look down at her had any desire he might have felt drifting away.

 

Fuck, seemed Nora was harder to forget than he wanted to admit.

 

“Look, hold up, sister.” He pulled her arm until she moved off his cock. “Not today, huh?”

 

She lifted her gaze to his, clouded and confused. Drool on the corner of her lips made him rub his hand against his face. Could it get any worse?

 

“Well isn’t this nice?” Nora stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

 

Yeah, guess it could.

 

#

 

Nora held onto her anger because it was easier than the hurt that threatened to tear her apart.

 

Some woman rested on her knees, adoring face turned toward John, one of her hands on his hip, his cock out.

 

Yeah, pretty clear what had been going on.

 

“Look, sunshine-“ He put space between himself and the woman as he tucked himself into his pants and fastened them.

 

“Don’t sunshine me, John.”

 

The woman stood, her breasts nearly falling out of the harness she seemed to think passed as a shirt. “Who’s this, Hancock?” She stumbled once as she asked.

 

“I’m his wife,” Nora growled out.

 

The woman eyed Nora, head to toe, lip lifted as she walked forward “If you’re his wife, no wonder he’s been spending so much time with me.”

 

Nora reached out and wrapped her fingers around the cunt’s harness, yanking her forward. “Watch your mouth. You’re getting yourself in trouble.”

 

Breath drenched in psycho blew across Nora’s face as the woman wobbled on her feet. “When was the last time he fucked you? Bet he was thinkin’ of me. I can tell you he ain’t never called out some wife’s name when he fucks me.”

 

That was enough.

 

Nora drug the woman by her stupid fucking harness to the door, tossing her out.

 

The woman hit the dirt, unable to keep her balance. She twisted like she might think about round two.

 

Nora pointed her finger at the woman. “I catch you within a fucking mile of my husband and I will knock out whats left of your teeth. We clear?”

 

“You little-“

 

Nora answered by grabbing the pistol from her hip and firing a shot a few inches from the woman’s foot. "We clear?" 

 

She must have gotten the message because after one more glare, she turned and stumbled off to who fucking cares.

 

The walls rattled as Nora slammed the door shut.

 

“Ain’t seen that temper in two hundred years, sunshine.”

 

Nora twisted and leveled her best ‘don’t fuck with me’ look at him. “Don’t you dare call me sunshine when you’re in here getting your dick serviced by some junkie.”

 

“Wasn’t like that. And maybe you want to put down that pistol? I don’t trust you when you’re angry.”

 

“Oh, you don’t trust me?” Nora dropped the pistol on the table. “Funny coming from you.”

 

“And why shouldn’t I have done that? You been clear we ain’t anything, despite your whole ‘he’s my husband’ spiel.”

 

“Couldn’t even wait for privacy? Why am I not surprised? Once a selfish asshole, always a selfish asshole.”

 

“I told her no! Fucking hell, sunshine, you are one stubborn woman. I turned her down.”

 

“Before or after your dick was in her mouth?”

 

“Both,” he said, voice dry.

 

Nora walked up and shoved him. It was so much like their old fights, the ones where they’d scream at each other until their voices gave out. “Don’t you lie to me!”

 

He caught her by the front of her shirt and yanked her forward, then set his hand on the small of her back to keep her against him. “I’m a junkie, a coward, a fuck-up, but I ain’t a liar. I don’t even know that woman’s name.”

 

“Right, because reminding me you’re a man-whore who doesn’t even remember his fuck buddy’s name makes it better.”

 

“Just being honest. We fucked a few times. It wasn’t important. She saw me in town and showed up for a repeat. I hesitated, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want her. Kept thinking about you.”

 

“Don’t bullshit me.”

 

“And you’re really gonna say shit? You, who slept in another man’s bed and showed up with a beard rash from Elder Asswipe? You got any high ground?”

 

He wasn’t wrong. She’d have had sex with Arthur if she’d felt a damned thing. She had no qualms about continuing with Danse. So why had the idea of him with that bitch made her so angry?

 

Instead of thinking about it, Nora wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

 

John twisted them until her back hit the wall. He set his hands on the wall on either side of her head, caging her in with his body, as he deepened the kiss.

 

Nora undid his pants, and they fell down because of his thin hips. Nothing underneath. Perfect. The fewer layers, the quicker they could get this over with.

 

Just like old times. They’d scream and fight and then fuck it all out.

 

He broke the kiss but didn’t touch her with his hands, his lips moving over her throat. How could he make her want him so much with his just lips?

 

She stripped out of her own jeans, kicking off her shoes to get free of the material.

 

“You wanna move to the bed?” His breath warmed her skin.

 

“Here. Just get it over with.”

 

He paused, pulling back to stare at her, those black eyes so flat. “Maybe this ain’t the best-“

 

She shut him up by wrapping her leg around his hip, her hand grasping his cock. She gave two hard strokes, unable to gentle them because she was still so damned hurt, before she lined him up. Her heel pressed against his ass to pull him in.

 

He stretched her as she tilted her hips to take him deeper. It only took the first inch before he took over, hips driving his cock into her.

 

Nora’s head smacked against the wall as she gave herself over to this.

 

This was what they had between them, all they had between them. It was what was always between them.

 

And as much as she wanted to fight it, she wanted it, too. She needed to feel him. Not like on the roof when he was some stranger, but now, with all their fucked up past between them.

 

He buried his face against her neck, lips moving in gentle strokes that might have been whispers or might have been kisses.

 

All she knew was that they were too soft. She dug her nails into his shoulders to try and get him back to what she wanted.

 

Hard. Fast. Fucking, that was it. She could handle that.

 

He groaned against her skin and fucked her harder. He’d always been good at giving her what she needed, at least in this way.

 

The rest of their life he was slipping away. He was always leaving her, always out of reach, except when they had sex. During sex he was with her, focusing on her, not pulling away.

 

John leaned and grabbed her leg still on the floor. He hoisted it up and used both hands to grab her ass.

 

His strength surprised her. Given his body, the way he seemed to be wasting away, his ability to hold her with ease surprised her.

 

He used his grip on her ass to drive harder into her until she couldn’t think about anything else. All she could feel was him.

 

The anger of their past, it drifted away like it always did in those moments. Two hundred years didn’t dull the spark between them at all.

 

He slowed, his thrusts losing their rhythm.

 

Nora knew his body, couldn’t forget what it felt like when he got close. His fingers tightened on her ass until it hurt.

 

He always did that, always gripped her as he came like he was afraid she’d get away. It blurred the past, the present, all of it. She didn’t know if she was two hundred years ago or now, if she was pre-war or in this shithole of a world.

 

All she knew was the jerk of his cock inside her as he emptied into her, filling her like he had before, a tether to the old Nora, the old Nate.

 

Not John, but Nate. The man she’d married, the man she’d loved, the one she’d hated.

 

He released her legs, helping her to her feet and then to the bed. He slid on on the bed beside her, both of them naked from the waist down but still wearing shirts.

 

His hand went to her hip, grip soft as he stroked her.

 

Nora let her gaze drop between them. She had red on her mound. Lipstick? Matching smeared red rested in a broken circle around the base of his cock.

 

From the woman. . . The woman John had had sucking his dick before she’d walked in on him. The woman he'd have fucked if Nora hadn't shown up and given him a different option. 

 

John cursed. “Fuck. Look, sunshine-“

 

Nora shook her head and rolled over, giving her back to him. “Just don’t, John.”

 

He pressed his forehead against her back, just below the nape of her neck. His breath singed her skin. “It wasn’t like-“

 

“-Really, don’t. We aren’t anything, right? This was fucking, nothing more.”

 

“It wasn’t just-“

 

“Please.”

 

He sighed and went silent but didn’t move away.

 

His come slid from her folds, onto her thighs, but she couldn’t find the energy to move, to do anything about it. Her anger had bled and shriveled until only her pain remained. None of it mattered.

 

Nothing but not letting John know about the tears that streamed down her face.


	12. Chapter 12

 John knew, of course. They’d had enough nights where she’d cried herself to sleep that he knew the subtle shake of her shoulders, the way her breathing would hitch. All silent in the room but screaming in his head.

 

He’d said nothing, because what was there to say? Couldn't wipe away years of hurt with cheap words. 

 

It'd been fucking stupid to not kick that girl out sooner. He knew it, couldn't deny it. Should have sent her packing the moment he'd realized it was her. Instead, he'd hurt Nora again. 

 

Eventually, she’d drifted off, and he’d injected med-x to follow her into slumber.

 

Neither had said shit the next day. They were masters at not saying shit. They’d picked up iguana on a stick for breakfast, perfect to eat while they walked. Tracking the signal proved easy, as well, at least until they’d reached the Greenetech Genetics facility.

 

Nora peered at her pipboy, the noise it made from the signal nearly steady. “Looks like he’s in there.”

 

John nodded as he checked his blade and ammunition. He pulled his shotgun from his back. “So, sunshine, you think I can talk you into staying out here?”

 

She pulled her assault rifle from her back. “Not a chance.”

 

“You could get hurt.”

 

“So could you.”

 

“Yeah, but I’ve been a soldier most of my life. You ain’t exactly a fighter.”

 

Nora turned a hard look on him. “I wasn’t, but I’ve had to learn. What exactly do you think I’ve been doing since I woke up?”

 

“Following around a bigoted tin can.”

 

“Yes, and guess what?” She checked her pack as she spoke, counting her grenades, putting additional ammunition in her pockets for easy access. She worked her way around her weapons with a comfort that surprised him. “He had to teach me a lot, so maybe you should let up on him because I might not be alive if he hadn’t gotten me ready for this world. Lord knows you never did.”

 

“Because you were never supposed to be part of this world. I tried to keep you safe from it, protect you from the ugliness.”

 

“You didn’t protect me, you just protected yourself. I’m not about to sit here while you ride off to fix shit. Either help me or get out my way, but don’t you dare try to stop me.”

 

John shook his head as she turned and walked through the door. He just had to keep a close eye on her.

 

Like fuck was he going to lose her after he’d just found her again. He’d managed to keep Roger alive, so he’d keep Nora alive, too.

 

Thirty minutes later, John whistled low.

 

Nora was a fucking beast. Sure, she didn’t throw people like Fahr did, didn’t aim like he did, but the girl chucked explosives down hallways like a one-woman fuck-up-your-day party.

 

Hell, he wanted to apologize to that Paladin for the shit he’d said. As much as the might be trying to get into John’s wife’s pants, at least he’d taught Nora more than a few things about survival.

 

She waved to him in signals, took corners like a champ, used cover each time they came up to enemies. Within ten minutes, John stopped having to worry about her. She did more than hold her own, she matched him.

 

Sure, he was rusty. He didn’t get out to practice his skills that often.

 

Of course, she didn’t seem immune or critical of his skill. He’d catch her, lip between her teeth, watching him. That lust in her eyes? Oh, that did something for him. If they weren’t waist deep in enemies, he’d consider trying something.

 

He could back her to a wall, get his tongue on her, and have her moaning his name in no time.

 

John shook his head. Nope. Bad idea, very bad idea.

 

Instead, tried to force his attention back to the task at hand.

 

He had time to leer at her later.

 

#

 

Nora tucked the courser chip into the hidden spot sewn into the bottom of her backpack as John pushed papers around on his desk.

 

He released a loud sigh before signing a paper.

 

They’d torn through the building, putting down the gunners that had taken root in it. Nora’s aim wasn’t ideal, which was the reason Danse had given her an assault rifle. Aim proved less important when you had more bullets.

 

She preferred the explosives, however. She’d even grown proficient at making grenades and mines herself. Her items could clear rooms in no time flat. It wasn't Danse's favorite way to fight, but he'd accepted that she wasn't a soldier. 

 

John didn't seem bothered by it. In fact, the way he'd stared at her said he was a fan of the carnage she could leave in her wake. Him appreciating her ability, it excited her. He'd loved her, cherished her, but had he ever really respected her before? 

 

A groan this time had Nora lifting her gaze. “You’re making a lot of noise.”

 

“I hate paperwork.”

 

“That’s why I always did the bills at home.” She froze when home snuck out.

 

Home. That house where they’d been happy, the one they’d decorated.

 

She remembered when they’d gotten the couch. It had been one of those that came in parts. She’d held the instructions, reading them out loud and pointing. He’d huffed, claiming she had to be reading them upside down.

 

They’d ended up kneeling on the ground as they argued over the directions spread across the floor. Hours later, the neighbor had come over and helped them set up the couch.

 

His voice pulled her back. “Any chance you’re free to take over the task here, sunshine? Because dealing with trade agreements and mayoral bullshit kills me.”

 

“So why are you Mayor, then? If you hate this, why do it?”

 

He pushed the paperwork aside and stared at her from over the desk. “The old mayor was an asshole who needed to be put down. Seemed it fell to me to do it.”

 

That was the man she knew. For all his faults, he didn’t let people get shit on.

 

“You remember when my little sister had that boyfriend? The one who knocked her around.”

 

John stood, hands on the small of his back to stretch the muscles out. “Yeah. Kim was a sweetheart. She never got your temper. That prick deserved what he got. You know me, I don’t stand for that bullshit. This was a special sort of fucker, though. Terrorized the people in town who didn’t have a chance at defending themselves. I got sick of seeing it, sick of letting it happen. Rounded up some folks and we hung the old mayor from the balcony.” He came to stand in front of her. “What’s going on in your head?”

 

“Sometimes it’s hard to remember why I hate you.”

 

He crouched and set his elbows on her knees for balance. “Well, my charm throws people off.”

 

“This man, the one who helps people, I fell in love with this man. The one who took care of Kim’s boyfriend, the one who recited stupid poetry with me on our first date.”

 

“That’s who I am, sunshine. Ain’t all good, but I ain’t all bad, either.” He offered a crooked grin. “Just a hell of a lot of bad.”

 

“Why couldn’t you be this man all the time?”

 

“Because I’m a coward. Because I knew I was never good enough for you, and I figured it’d be better for you if I wasn’t around much. Be harder for you to figure out how bad you fucked up when you agreed to marry me if I wasn’t around to prove it.”

 

She lifted her hand toward his face but hesitation won and she froze.

 

“Go on.”

 

Nora took a deep breath and did it again, tracing the scars along his cheeks. “Does it hurt?”

 

“Nah. Hurt like a bitch when I turned, but not anymore.”

 

“You don’t have a nose.”

 

“And to think no one ever mentioned that.” He shifted his hands so they sat on the tops of her thighs. “Look, I get it. We got ourselves a shitty past. Lot of hurt there, lot of ugliness. I can’t make up for it, don’t expect to, but I want to fix this somehow, try to be friends. We weren’t always so bad, didn’t always hurt each other. There were good times, ya know.”

 

“Really?” She remembered them, of course. She wanted to see what he considered good times. Was it just the sex? Was that all he remembered of her? "Like what?"

 

He nodded, leaning in closer. When her legs parted on their own, he slid between them and moved a hand behind her neck. “I remember how fucking pretty you looked after you had Shaun.”

 

“Seriously? That wasn’t me at my best.”

 

“Yeah, it really was. Sure, you were sweaty and your cheeks were red, and your hair was sticking up, but you had our son in your arms. Fuck, sunshine, you were something that day.”

 

She leaned in toward him, drawn by their past. “Maybe we could be friends. Just friends.”

 

“Yeah, sister. Just friends.” His lips brushed hers, warm breath against her.

 

Nora returned the almost-kiss. “We can’t give into anything else.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His tongue teased her bottom lip in a blatant offer.

 

If she said yes, he’d take her right there. He’d kiss her, taste her, let her lose herself in him and their past. It was so damned tempting. He could make her forget everything so easily.

 

Before she could answer, a knock on the door had them pulling apart. They separated like kids caught making out.

 

John’s trembling hands patted at his pockets before withdrawing a tin of mentats. Something about seeing him shaken had her smiling. Getting beneath his skin and throwing his perfect charisma off felt good.

 

Fahrenheit, his bodyguard, walked in. “Got your shit, Hancock.”

 

“What’s that for?” Nora stood as she looked at the packs the woman carried in.

 

“We’re heading out.”

 

“Where to?”

 

John took the packs and thanked Fahrenheit. The woman left before John answered the question. “We need that chip decoded.”

 

“Maxson can do it.”

 

“Trust me, he can’t. That shit you have is way above his pay grade. Only one person in the Commonwealth who can decode that thing.”

 

“And who is this questionable friend you have?”

 

“Oh, the most questionable. You’re going to meet the railroad.”


	13. Chapter 13

 John didn’t care for the Institute, even before they fucked with his family, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure the Railroad was any better. Both of them shadowy as fuck.

 

Anything that hid in the shadows made him nervous.

 

Shit in the light you could shoot, you could figure out. Anything hiding reminded him of radscorpians. Slimy fuckers who could pull you under before you could do anything about it.

 

Still, he’d dealt with the Railroad some.

 

Their idea was good even if the way they went about it made him cringe. People deserved freedom, hell, he’d built his town on that idea, and even if those people had chips in ‘em? Yeah, they deserved a life that didn’t include looking over their shoulders for the big bad boogeyman of the Commonwealth.

 

Fuck, everyone deserved that.

 

Least the Railroad was doing something about it, unlike most folks. Most folks seemed only too happy to let assholes do whatever they wanted.

 

And, well, John could admit that getting on the Institute’s radar wasn’t a brilliant move. He knew what happened with the last headquarters, had sheltered the remaining agents in the Statehouse until they could find something else. One of the reasons they’d picked the church was the proximity to Goodneighbor. Always good to have an ally around the corner.

 

“Is their password really Railroad?”

 

“Hey, that’s hi-tech security these days, sunshine. Most folks just have a string with some cans on it.”

 

Nora pulled at the backpack strap over her shoulder. “Arthur says the Railroad is as much a part of the problem as the Institute.”

 

“ _Arthur_ is the age of my fucking boots. He ain't exactly a wealth of wisdom. Don’t listen to everything he says.”

 

“He’s managed to build the Brotherhood from scraps on the East Coast.”

 

“That a little hero worship I’m hearing?” John turned, brow cocked up to the line of his hat.

 

Fuck, he didn’t like that praise from her lips. He’d never considered himself a jealous man, but maybe that was because the old Nora never looked at anyone else that way. Now? Now he was jealous of every fucking person who made her smile.

 

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug that neither confirmed or denied it. “Hard not to be impressed with a man like that.”

 

She used to talk about him like that. He caught her once, near the start, when she’d sat there in her mother’s kitchen, telling her mom about what a great man he was. She’d talked about his military service, about how brave he was, about all the people he’d saved. She hadn’t known he was there, of course, would have never said such things if she had, but he’d puffed his chest out.

 

Something about the praise of a women he loved did great things for a man’s ego.

 

And something about the praising of another man by the woman he loved just shriveled a guy’s dick up.

 

“Yeah, him and his ‘we come in peace’ bullshit. You know that was just him sucking his own dick, right?”

 

“I don’t think he needs to suck his own dick, John. He’s got plenty of people lining up for that.”

 

John moved forward, backing her against the wall. He was always doing that, always trying to get her to stay somewhere, like if he crowded her enough she’d just fucking stay put. “You know, I saved Roger’s life enough times, I wonder if that buys me the karma to kill this Maxson.”

 

“Jealous?”

 

John brushed his lips against hers. “Absolutely.”

 

“Really? Do I come and have sex on your doorstep, Hancock?” Deacon’s voice had Hancock dropping his forehead against Nora’s shoulder for a moment.

 

“Nah, Deacon. But, to be fair, I’m not convinced you ever have sex. Hell, for all I know you ain’t even human.” John pushed away from Nora with a groan.

 

“I do like to keep them guessing. And look at the present you’ve drug to our doorstep, Mayor. You always know just what I want.”

 

“This is-“

 

“-oh, I know who she is. She killed Kellogg, numero uno on our ‘people we’d like to not be alive anymore’ list. In fact, other than her horrible taste in friends, I’d say she was just about perfect.” Deacon flashed a wide, toothy grin at John. “Present company included.”

 

“Ouch. And here I thought we were friends.”

 

Nora moved around John and stuck her hand out. “Nora.”

 

“Deacon.” He shook the hand as if charmed by the offer.

 

Though, hell, people didn’t shake anymore. Too dangerous. You never know when someone would take the change to shove a blade between your ribs for the trouble.

 

Deacon thrust a thumb behind him. “Head on in there. You can meet the head honcho. Look for the scowling lady with a cigarette. I think I’ll have a word with the good mayor.”

 

Nora walked past them with a confidence he had to admit, he fucking liked. She’d always had confidence, but this new side? The one that killed gunners and deathclaws? The one that walked into the unknown headquarters of a shadowy organization without a flinch?

 

Fuck, he liked it.

 

Deacon cleared his throat before nodding down at John’s crotch. “We don’t have many rules here, but you know this isn’t Goodneighbor, right? First you’re having sex on our doorstep, now you’re sporting boners in public. For shame.”

 

“Shut up, Deacon. I saved your lying ass enough times by giving you a safe place to hide that I should be able to pop boners wherever I want.”

 

“Is that your payment? Erection protection?”

 

John groaned and adjusted his pants. “I need your help.”

 

“Yeah? Well I need some answers, like why you’re dragging a little vault girl into our super-secret fort here. You know our rules, we don’t let just anyone join the fun and games. You? You proved yourself. Her? She’s done some good work, but we don’t know her.”

 

“Well, I brought you a present, and I figured you’d want it right away. Couldn’t go through your normal paranoid bullshit.” John reached into his pocket to take out the courser chip.

 

“Is that what I think it is?”

 

“Yeah, it is. You want to apologize now or take some time to work out a really good one?”

 

“For this? Hell, I’ve put out for less.”

 

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass.” John handed the chip over.

 

Deacon lifted the chip into the light, twisting it to study it. “So, you going to tell me about your buddy?”

 

“Seemed you already knew plenty when I tried to introduce her.”

 

“I have to keep up the mystery, Hancock. People look forward to my magic tricks.” Deacon winked, a cocky grin on his lips. “I know she’s a vault dweller. She joined up with the Brotherhood right away, she’s left a path of destruction in her wake, and she took down Kellogg. That’s about it. What I don’t know is why you’re roped into this with her. You’re usually smart enough to stay off the Institutes bad side. Hell, you turned down my offer to join us how many times?”

 

John shoved his hands into his pockets, fingers playing with the chems there to keep him busy. “This isn’t just some vendetta against the Institute, okay? That girl, she’s important. She’s my wife.”

 

“Already? Why, don’t you move fast?”

 

“Funny, smart-ass. She was my wife pre-war. Cryofreezing was one of vault-tecs dirty little secrets, it seems.”

 

“And why does your pre-war wife want to wipe out the Institute?”

 

“Because they have our son, and I’m going to get him back.”


	14. Chapter 14

“You really think they can decode that?” Nora stretched her legs out on the mattress.

 

“Our Tinker Tom can fix and break anything, long as he’s sober,” Deacon said.

 

“Too bad he’s never sober.” John sat on the next mattress over, Deacon’s head in his lap.

 

Deacon chuckled, hands folded over his stomach. “Guess that explains why the Institute is still standing.”

 

“You two seem to be quite friendly.”

 

Deacon flashed her a smile. “Oh, Hancock here has been the one who got away for a while. I’ve been trying to get him to join us for years. He always turns me down.”

 

“What can I say? I’m a heartbreaker.”

 

Nora stared between the two who lounged like lovers. Strange, sarcastic lovers, but still. Who was Nora to judge?

 

Deacon reached his foot over to kick Nora’s feet. “Don’t let him downplay things. When the Institute found our last base, it was Hancock here who gave those of us who got away a place to hide. We were on the run, getting picked off. Might not be any of us left if he hadn’t taken this rag-tag group of charming failures in.”

 

Nora lifted her gaze to John’s, an eyebrow raised.

 

He shrugged. “Wasn’t a big deal. Goodneighbor is a big town, with a lot of hidden spots. Courser came into town looking, but he didn’t find shit. Least he was smart enough to turn tail when he realized Goodneighbor wasn’t the sort of town to fuck with.”

 

“If they’d known we were there, they’d have burned the place to the ground.”

 

“Well, they’d have tried, but my town? It ain’t so easy to burn.”

 

Deacon twisted to stare up at John. “Didn’t you set it on fire once?”

 

“One time and no one lets me forget it.”

 

“I heard you were naked.”

 

“Naked and high, yes. Thank you, Deacon. Shall we talk about the time you walked into town with that awful purple wig-“

 

“-topic over!” Deacon hopped to his feet. “With that charming conversation over, I think it’s bedtime. Tom’ll be working at it all night. You two are welcome to walk back to Goodneighbor, but it’s pretty late. We got lots of beds here for you to crash in. A bit light on the privacy, but otherwise? Just one big happy family. I’ve got super-secret things to do, so I’ll catch you both in the morning.”

 

John waited until Deacon left before he turned his gaze on Nora. “So? You want to hang around here or head back?”

 

“Stay. I want the information from the chip as soon as it’s ready. Besides, he’s right. By the time we get back, we’ll be lucky to get a few hours asleep before sunrise. It’s smarter to stay put.”

 

He nodded, back against the wall still. “You know, I think we should bunk up for the night, sunshine.”

 

“Oh do you? Is this place that treacherous?”

 

“Completely. And for me to say that it means something.”

 

“Deathclaws and raiders?”

 

“Worse. I fell asleep here once and woke up with Carrington in the same bed. I’d hate to see that happen to you.” He offered that grin, full of snark and far too much charm.

 

Nora tilted her head. “No.”

 

“No?”

 

“I want the truth from you for once. Don’t feed me bullshit.”

 

He huffed out a soft laugh. “The truth? What fun is that? Fine. Truth is, I want to fall asleep beside you. So far you’ve slept beside me when I was high, when you were pissed, but I ain’t got to just fall asleep beside you. I miss it, you know? Spent over two hundred years missing you, wishing I had your body curled up against mine as I went to sleep. Have some pity on me, sunshine. I took the long way here.”

 

The honesty in his voice had her pausing, staring at him. The cracks showed, the ones that had always been there, but the ones he kept close to his chest.

 

John wasn’t a man to be honest about much. He lied to hide behind what he thought he should be, liked to keep what he needed silent, to pretend he didn’t need much of anything.

 

So Nora nodded. “Okay, John.”

 

#

 

John wanted to run his hand up and down Nora’s side. He wanted to dance his fingers along the curve of her waist, along her hip, over every inch he could reach.

 

Still, he didn’t want to push his luck. She might still walk out.

 

Nora laid in front of him, both on their sides facing each other. Neither touched, neither had spoken. Glory slept in the sleeping back near the entry, and an agent he didn’t recognize slept on another mattress.

 

“Thank you,” he said, voice low for what little privacy they had. At her confused look, he continued. “For sleeping here. For giving me a chance.”

 

“This isn’t a chance, not for us.”

 

“I know. I didn’t mean like that, I mean a chance to find Shaun, to be something of a father even if I don’t deserve it.”

 

“What was it like? Two hundred years, I mean, what was it like?”

 

He shrugged, ignoring it when her fingers came to rest on the center of his chest, thumb rubbing small, soft circles on his sternum. “Long. Surprisingly lonely.”

 

“Did you find anyone? My mom, your sisters? I know they’d be dead by now, but did you find anyone?”

 

“Not really. When I went looking, I found a few who’d turned into ferals. Most of the people we knew, they were just too close to survive it. There’s a few pre-wars around, like Kent and Daisy and some vault-tec salesman who lives in the Rexford-“

 

“Vault-tec salesman? I remember one of them, he was the one who signed us up for the vault. Brown coat, stupid brown hat. He had one of those big sales pitch infomercial voices.”

 

John chuckled. “Sounds like the same man. Guess I owe him something, don’t I? Anyway, yeah, a few pre-war ghouls are around, but none of ‘em we knew. Sorry, Sunshine, but it’s just you and I left over.”

 

She went silent, gaze on his chest, not his face. “You know, I borrowed Mrs. Kennedy’s favorite necklace.”

 

A frown crossed his lips at the strange statement. “And?”

 

“And I never returned it. I keep thinking about that, about the necklace. She made me swear to bring it back because it was her favorite. She wanted me to wear it while you were away, said her husband gave it to her before he deployed. It was good luck, she’d said, and military wives, we needed all the good luck we could get. I never told her what happened when you left, how we fought. I let her think it was all roses, let everything think that.”

 

“What happened to it?”

 

She shrugged, her fingers dragging down to his stomach. “I don’t know. I guess someone looted the house in the last two hundred years because it was gone when I went back. I keep thinking about how I promised her, about all the things I promised that I never did. I wonder if she thought about it when the bombs fell, when they lit up the sky, did she think about the fact that I never brought the necklace back, that she didn’t have it with her at the end.”

 

Ah, there she was, his soft-hearted wife. It wouldn’t matter how much time passed, when good she got with her gun and her grenades, she’d never change, not really. She was still the same sweet woman she’d always been. “I’ve had more time than you had to figure this out, to work through this. I figure, hell, theres things we always wish we had time to do. Mrs. Kennedy was a nosy-drunk who gave you that necklace so she could tell people she helped you. I know because I knew her husband, and trust me, he wasn’t giving her shit. Even if none of that was true, she wouldn’t have been mad. People, they die, and when they die, that’s it. They aren’t pissed about necklaces or anything. This world, it ain’t perfect, but it’s better than the alternative.”

 

“How’d you get so smart?”

 

“Two-hundred years and a lot of fucking mentats.”

 

Her hand drifted down further, fingers dipping below the waist of his pants.

 

“What are you doing there, sunshine?”

 

She didn’t look up at him, fingers flicking open the button of his pants.

 

He caught her cheek and lifted her face. “I’m not interested in more angry sex.”

 

“I’m not angry, not right now.” She pushed her hand into his pants and palmed his cock, still soft. “Out of everything I lost, everything I can’t get back, you’re all I have. You’re my necklace.”

 

He groaned as he hardened beneath her small hand. She stroked him, fingers playing over his cock.

 

“We ain’t exactly got much privacy here,” he whispered.

 

“So, don’t make any noise.” She shifted his pants down his hips, then pulled his underwear enough so only her hand touched him.

 

“Anyone who thinks you’re innocent doesn’t know shit about you, do they?”

 

Nora thumbed the head of his cock, a finger sliding against the slit, collecting the pre-come that had beaded there.

 

It wasn’t the touch that got him going so fast. A hand was a hand, after all. His palm could do the same work she was doing.

 

No, it was the fact it was his wife. Here she was, willingly touching him. The woman he thought he’d lost, but she’d reached out, she’d wrapped her hand around his cock.

 

Not to mention, his perverted self was getting off on the filthy thrill of getting off so close to other people. They could wake up and see them, see Nora’s arm shifting below the blanket, and none of ‘em were stupid enough to not know what was going on.

 

He’d always been a man to enjoy his kinks, his perversions. Handcuffs, floggers, biting, blindfolds, anything. In the years when he’d thought Nora was gone, he’d had his fun with women, with men, with any combination of them. He traded useless sex for useless chems and lost himself in both.

 

And yet the stroke of Nora’s palm was getting him off faster than any of that bullshit.

 

“Fuck,” he snarled.

 

Nora leaned in, her lips against his, whispering. “Quiet, John. If they wake up, this stops. I don’t think that’s what you want. You can be good, can’t you?”

 

“Good ain’t really my thing.”

 

“You’re better than you think, and if the end of the world didn’t get you, I don’t think this will. You are very motivated when you have a reason to be.” She pushed his shoulder until he laid on his back, then scooted down, lips placing kisses down his chest. “I plan on giving you a good reason to be.”

 

She slung her leg over his, inching down, the blanket pulling down as she went. Her breath, the heat of his lips, they slid past the cloth of his shirt. When she reached his navel, she nipped at the skin, the sting pulling another groan for him.

 

She cast him a smirk before she blew warm air along the length of his cock, her hands on his hips.

 

He reached down to wrap his fingers in her hair, but she shook the hand on.

 

So, the girl wanted to play her game. Fine with him. John folded his hands behind his head to watch his wife work.

 

She drug her tongue up his cock, her hand grasping his balls to tug softly on them.

 

He spread his legs to give her better access, to give her whatever the fuck she wanted. Nothing mattered but surrendering to her, but tempting her to keep going.

 

Nora licked the head of his cock, collecting the pre-come that had started to escape, then pressed a sweet kiss there. Fuck, her lips were warm. He wanted to push past those lips, to see them stretched out around him.

 

She’d always given good head, probably because the woman seemed to enjoy it. Enthusiasm counted for a lot, and his girl was enthusiastic. How many nights had he come home and she’d slid down to those knees of her, keeping her gaze on him.

 

When she slipped those pretty lips of hers around his cock, when she let him into the heat of her mouth, he smothered the sounds he wanted to release.

 

Nora tugged again at his balls, her other hand grasping the base of his cock. Her tongue swirled around the head of his cock, toying with the underside. She tilted her head, letting him press against the soft inside of her cheek.

 

Fucking hell, he’d missed this. Not the angry sex, the ‘I have no idea who you are sex,’ but the act of her wanting him, the act of her giving herself to him.

 

He lifted his hips when he couldn’t stay still anymore, pushing another inch into her mouth.

 

She smiled softly, the action absurd with her lips pulled around him, but it was a hell of a ‘gotchya’ grin.

 

Trouble, that’s what she was.

 

Instead of gloating, Nora dropped her gaze and focused on her task. She let the head of his cock rub against her cheek once more before angling him further in. Nora pressed her head forward, taking him deeper. Her throat constricted when he hit her gag reflex, her hand tightening around the base of his cock.

 

It reminded him of her learning to deepthroat. He hadn’t pushed it, but Nora wasn’t a woman to give in. The way her throat had flexed around his cock when she’d gagged on him, the way her eyes had teared up, fuck he’d loved it. Something about the way she’d push herself, the way she’d give him everything, it had always been a fucking turn on.

 

So when Nora did that for him, when she slid forward, taking him into her throat while her hand went from his cock to his hip to steady herself. Her throat was tight and so damned warm. She swallowed, making it pulse around him, tightening in waves.

 

The silence of the room, the people who could wake up and see her blowing him at any time, it pushed him over the edge. He released a groan as he came, spilling down into her throat, and Nora swallowed every drop of it.

 

She pulled back, sucking in a deep breath, hacking. She coughed up a few drops of come that had gotten into her mouth as she caught her breath.

 

John wrapped his fingers behind her neck and pulled her up his body. He took her mouth in a kiss. Maybe he should be gentle, giving, sweet.

 

He didn’t want sweet. He wanted to own her, to take her until she was his again, all of her.

 

Nora returned the kiss, fingers wrapping in his shirt like the thought of letting him go terrified her.

 

She broke the kiss and slid off him, returning to her spot beside him like the whole thing hadn’t happened. “I knew you could keep it down.”

 

“Like you said, sunshine, motivation is a powerful thing. You interested in my returning the favor?”

 

A flush ran up her cheek, the light catching on it. Her tongue, that fucking tongue that tempted him, it danced across her lips. “I’m not the degenerate you are.”

 

“Really? Because you were sucking my cock in public. I promise I’ll be real good for you. Won’t take me long.”

 

She shook her head, but scooted forward, slipping her foot between his in an oddly intimate motion. “We both know I’d never keep quiet.”

 

He smiled and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against his chest. “Yeah, guess we do know that. Fine, sunshine. I’ll make it up to you just as soon as we got a moment free. You gonna let me do that, or you gonna claim this as a moment of insanity?”

 

She pressed her forehead against his chest, then slid her arm around him. “Every minute I’m with you is just another moment of insanity.”

 

“That bother you?”

 

She offered one more kiss to his chest, so gentle he wasn’t sure he felt it. “No. Maybe that’s what life is, just one moment after another of insanity. I guess, if that’s all there is, I think I’d rather be crazy with you than anyone else.”

 

John stared down at the top of her head, fingers flexing as he held her close.

 

After two-hundred years, he finally had his wife back. Now, he just needed to find a way to keep her. 

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to Feral21 who came up with this idea and has been nice enough to allow me to play with it =)


End file.
